Julie that is the best thing I've read in yonks!!
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Julie that is the best thing I've read in yonks!!
Registered User
What an awesome statement
That they listen
Registered User
By contrast, here is a media release from NASOG:
http://www.nasog.org.au/documents/me...ase_090818.pdf
... "educating" women about the risks of homebirth? More like brain-washing according to their self-serving bias and using scare tactics to force compliance.Tuesday August 18 2009
Please Put the Safety of Babies and their Mothers Ahead of Home Birth Ideology: Specialist Doctors
Australia’s peak group of obstetricians and gynaecologists today repeated its warning that home births – with or without a midwife – carry too much risk to babies and their mothers and the Government should resist calls to indemnify midwives outside of hospitals.
The President of the National Association of Specialist Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (NASOG),
Dr Hilary Joyce, congratulated the Government-majority Senate Committee investigating proposed
legislation relating to the role of midwives, for putting the safety of babies ahead of protestations by a small but vocal minority of people.
“I would urge all politicians to look to the evidence and to speak to the doctors and the midwives who
have to deal with some of the tragic consequences of home births,” Dr Joyce said today.
“Australia has one of the safest and highest quality maternity services in the world where specialist
doctors work side by side with qualified midwives to ensure babies and their mothers have a safe and successful birth experience.”
Dr Joyce said she was determined to help drive change in the way public and private hospitals present their maternity services to encourage all expectant mothers to opt for a safe and positive outcome under the care of specialist doctors and midwives working together.
“There is irrefutable evidence that women and babies are significantly safer in hospitals because of
the immediate access to specialist care. Thankfully, only 0.25% of Australian women risk their lives
and that of their babies by choosing a home birth.”
Dr Joyce said the Minister for Health and Ageing was acting in the best interests of babies and their
mothers by refusing to financially endorse the unsafe practice of delivering babies at home.
“There are things that can go wrong suddenly in a birth which, if not under specialist care or near
medical assistance, can result in an avoidable death or permanent injury,” Dr Joyce explained.
Dr Joyce said rather than call for the Government to fund insurance for an unsafe practice, politicians and health professionals should ask for funding to be directed to educating women and their families about the risks of home births.”
Dr Joyce said her organisation would continue to work closely with the Federal Government to
deliver the optimal collaborative model of obstetric care to all Australian women.
Registered User
*ahem* brace yourselves dears because this submission comes from someone who calls a spade a spade!!!
I love it!Dear Fascist Bully Boys,
I don't know why I am bothering to write this, because it made no f***ing difference the first 8 times I wrote it. I want the right to make my own decisions about where and with whom I use my vagina. I don't want your input on whom I sleep with nor with whom I choose to birth with.
Do you really honestly think for one minute that you care more about the outcome of my birth than I do? How much have you invested into my birth? Who much has Pesche? THIS IS MY CHILD AND MY BODY... I HAVE INVESTED EVERYTHING IN IT!
I don't want your medicare. I don't want your insurance. I don’t want your idea of collaboration. I just want to be treated like the highly intelligent person that I am and given the basic human right to choose homebirth with a midwife for myself and my family.
Please keep your laws off my body.
Signed,
Angry tax-payer
This is very interesting - on what grounds do they repeatedly say homebirth isn't safe? That wouldn't fly in the UK, because there are no medical studies to support the assertion. People might say/think it, but the government couldn't say it or act on it...
Bx
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I love the 2nd submission too
Registered User
Does anyone mind if I post mine here? I'm a facebook friend of Julie.
Dear Senator Moore,
Inquiry into Health Legislation Amendment (Midwives and Nurse Practitioners) Bill 2009 and two related Bills
This is a letter from the heart. I am sure you have already received countless letters, all with supporting evidence, telling you all the reasons why it is a disastrous idea to introduce this bill so I won't repeat them. I thought it would be better to tell you our story.
I am a busy Dad of three beautiful children and husband to a wonderful wife and mother who has been through a lot over the last few years in regards to her birth experiences. My wife has come to experience all the typical symptoms of post-traumatic stress and has battled depression, as well as ongoing physical repercussions since our first birth. We went into our first birth unaware of any of the controversy and debate in the world of maternity services. No-one had told us, but we experienced it for ourselves, in our most vulnerable moments.
We experienced all the cliched abuses (and I don't use that word lightly) at the hands of interfering, impersonal and I would even say bullying obstretricians as we were poked and prodded into the 'cascade of interventions' which ended up in, we truly believe, an unneccesary c-section. We watched as our lovely midwife (who we hadn't met before) backed off and threw her hands up in the air as if to say 'sorry' when the obgyns put their foot down (with no good reason but midnight was coming up and they wanted to go home thrown in with an alarmist 'do you want your baby to die?'. I assure you, my wife was barely out of pre-labour and there were no signs of distress). We have come to hate this powerful word weapon used on so many of our friends.
My wife desperately wanted a safe, natural birth. It was buried powerfully and deeply within her, feeling almost like a rite of passage as a woman. We understood that if things were to not progress as they should, that a c-section would be necessary. Disappointing, but necessary. We found ourselves, however, in a really horrible environment where we really felt we were thrown in to a power struggle we did not ask for. To cut a very long story short, we felt violated, dehumanized and out of control.
The following births now had us fighting for a natural birth. It didn't take much research to realize that VBACs (Vaginal Birth After Casareans) were very safe. But we were mocked and resisted at every turn by older, harsh schoolmaster-like obstetricians who basically treated us like stupid kids. All the research supported us. They didn't care to debate the issue, they wanted to pull rank. They let us have a 'trial of labour'. It did not progress after the water broke and my wife was still in prelabour. So a 2nd c-section was done. We had to fight like hell to get a few concessions to make the experience better (unlike the traumatic 1st experience in which our child was whisked away and handled by a heavily smoking, rough, insensitive midwife as my wife lay on her back in surgery crying, given little sympathy. And then she was left by herself, paralyzed in her room as the midwife took her baby away and forced me to go home.)
This time we had a doula to help us (why did we need re-inforcements??). The obgyns reluctantly allowed us to have skin-to-skin contact, he was weighed and measured in the room and got to stay with his mum. This greatly helped bonding and made breast feeding much easier. There was no reason any of this shouldn't happen but we had to fight to get it at every turn. It was a much more positive experience. But still very disappointing.
Our 3rd birth was an attempted homebirth. Both of us are intelligent, tertiary-educated people. We researched vigourously. It was here where I was saturated in the midwifery debate- where I discovered the countless stories like ours, where we were continuously gobsmacked as a whole world opened up to us. The more we read, the more we were shocked- the history, the money, the mortality rates, the explosion in c-sections etc etc. I tried to read both sides but I couldn't see a clear debate. All the evidence was on the side of the midwives. Journal after journal, study after study worldwide saying the same things. The medical model of childbirth was a runaway freight train and a disaster in the history of childbirth. What was meant to be a positive development for dealing with birth complications was becoming the default. Kicking down doors was replacing using doorknobs.
But this wasn't just a bland ivory tower debate. This was effecting the very fabric of our lives and the heart of our most important life choices- when, where and how we would have our children, and how it would effect future pregnancies. This debate had forced us into fights and positions that we never wanted to fight. We learnt that homebirth (with a midwife) was safe, even safer than hospital births in some ways, that it was emotionally healthy for mother and child. We also learnt that VBACS, even multiple, were safe too. That the risks were very low and could be compared to the alternate risks of multiple c-sections (but this is another debate).
We did not have much money, but we hired an amazing, experienced, trustworthy independent midwife anyway who was with us all the way. We were going to bypass the system altogether, with all its lies and bullying (that sounds over the top but it is our experience and perspective) and do it the way many developed countries are doing with great success.
The labour did not progress. We got to 9cm dilated and it went backwards. We did just like we told everybody we would do, the way it should be done, we transferred to hospital. Here, we were treated like scum. The obgyn, a young lady, who took us on proceeded to lecture us, giving us hopelessly bad figures that have famously been disproven. We asked for our concessions. She basically said, I paraphrase “Too bad. Sucked in. You should have played our game to begin with. You lose. Your c-section will be as cold and clinical as we can make it.” My paraphrase is more accurate than you can possibly imagine. Our baby and my wife were examined and the results they came back with were exactly what the midwife was telling them already from her previous examinations. The baby was fine, heart-rate was fine, she was 6cm dilated, but meconium present for a designated time meant that the baby needed to come out soon. My wife held out from signing consent forms and we considered going to another hospital. The obgyn huffed and puffed (remember the baby had been proven fine and we still had plenty of time).
A senior obgyn entered the room. He heard our story from the younger obgyn and said “Sure, we can do those things. That would be great!”. He then proceeded to tell us the actual risks, quoting stats that we recognized and blatantly contradicting what the previous obgyn had said. The younger shocked obgyn then huffed some more and stormed out of the room. The new OBGYN then really looked after us. He said we could continue trying to labour as baby was fine and see what happened. We thought it wasn't looking good so we booked the c-section. He wanted to do it, but couldn't, but made sure it was how we asked. Even our beloved midwife was allowed in with us to support us through our mix of joy and sadness as we went to theatre again. We were lucky. The OBGYN that happened to walk in that day was Dr Thou, the person who ran the St George home birth centre.
Unfortunately, we have found that Dr Thou is a rarity. And he fights a tide that pressures him to comply. I fear that he could be deregistered and/or refused insurance if he colludes with the homebirthing 'enemy'.
Our next birth, which we believe we have an inalienable right to do, presents a nightmare situation for us. What do we do? We have developed a justified mistrust and fear of OBGYNS in our birthing process. We are intellectually convinced that homebirth with an independent midwife, within access to a hospital (it's 2 minutes down the road), is our safest and least traumatic option.
It is looking like we are having this choice stolen from us. And in a free, democratic country, we are being forced into the hands of an industry we believe is not in the best interests of ours or our babies physical and mental well being and is frankly corrupt. Even if this is not true, we believe it passionately and it terrifies us. Our perspective is important and a freedom we deserve. There is surely enough academically researched evidence to anyone who pays ANY attention to the debate that shows our choices are not putting our precious babies at any more risk than in a c-section. So do we homebirth without a midwife? We don't want to do that. Are we forced into another unnecessary c-section under the knife of people we felt have been the cause of so much pain in our lives (along with the all-too-often unpublicized risks of that)? We don't want to do that either. So are we forced into the choice of having no more children? Think about that. Such a clear and precious right. How could this right possibly be taken away from us when it is unnecessary?
I assure you, everything I have written is the tip of the iceberg. This is our life. Our choices for the safety of ourselves and our children. What it means to be human in a free society. How would you feel if, assuming you have children, you were forced to feed your children a new food that you truly believed was dangerous because the government made it legally binding to do so? Would you feel angry? Betrayed? I find it disconcerting that for the first time in my life I actually feel hatred towards some of my authorities. We feel violated. I just keep saying to myself “How COULD they? How DARE they?” And we're not the only ones who feel exactly the same way. There is a reason there was such a big turnout in the cold wind and rain at Canberra for the homebirth rally. I don't want to feel this way about a government that is meant to exist to represent me, to protect me, to fight for my rights. This a world first for Australia.
Obstetrics will not collaborate with midwifery. They will redefine it. All that will be left is obstetric nurses afraid for their jobs. I hope you listen. Please don't do this. Don't take away the people we trust and love to help us walk through the most difficult and powerful moments in our lives. At least let it be how it was. We will pay out of pocket, no medicare, just don't take our independent homebirthing midwives away. I hope I've communicated just how important this is to us and many others.
Benjamin Skinner
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