Come on women and men of Australia - we REALLY need you right now...

[Trillian]

And this is the related article I posted about the Review earlier today https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...-our-help.html

[~clover~]

OMG! I have a local hospital, but had to travel 2 hours to have DS - passing 2 other hospitals on the way that you can't birth in! I mean NOONE! No matter how many babies you've had, well unless you are going to give birth in 5 minutes. As well as travelling the 2 hours just for ante natal care every week towards the end.
I'll bbl to have a better read!

[Schmickers]

Here's mine.

I make my submission as a consumer of maternity services in NSW, as a health care professional, as a husband, and as a father.
I have two beautiful daughters, both of whom have been born at home. On both of these occasions, we took responsibility for the arrangement of a privately employed midwife, and paid for her services.
It continues to astound me, as both a health professional and as a parent, that such services are not provided as part of the public health system. Research from around the world into the use of independently practicing midwives to manage pregnancy care, birth, and postnatal care in the home setting has consistently confirmed two outcomes – that home birth is as safe as hospital birth or safer for women who are appropriately screened, and that the rate of intervention is much lower. Other similar research has indicated that for women who have pregnancy care and give birth in the home setting, rates of satisfaction are higher than for similar women who have their pregnancy care and give birth in a hospital setting.
While I understand that the provision of maternity services is a politically fraught area, and I have read the Australia and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists statement concerning their refusal to endorse home birth as a "safe" option, even this organisation cannot deny the wide-ranging body of research that demonstrates the benefits of this model. Indeed, such a model of midwifery-led maternity services has been successfully implemented in New Zealand, where caesarean section rates are now much lower than our own country.
Consider also the cost of providing midwife-led and homebirth services, as opposed to allowing obstetric- and hospital-based management of maternity care for all women, irrespective of their risk factors. Independently practicing midwives currently charge between $3,000 and $4,000 for their services; this fee includes all prenatal, birth, and postnatal care and the provision of all necessary equipment. While I do not currently have access to accurate financial statistics pertaining to the cost of maternity services in the hospital setting, consider that a hospital stay, including interventions such as forceps extraction, continuous fetal monitoring, or a caesarean section, costs considerably more than the cost of a homebirth. Also consider that the number of women who require a caesarean section in the hospital system is around 30%; the number of women who require a caesarean section during an attempt to birth at home is around 2%. While some of this disparity can be explained by the more stringent screening procedures that apply to women who home birth, it is clear that even if the government were to fund or partially fund independently practicing midwives under Medicare, or alternatively introduce such services as part of the public maternity system, the result would be significant cost savings.
Home birth and midwife-led care for appropriately screened clients is safer, more satisfying for clients, and less expensive than obstetric- and hospital-managed birth. It is a disgraceful mark on our health care system that this form of care remains so inaccessible to the majority of women, in particular low-risk women living in rural areas who under the current system are often required to leave their homes and travel hundreds of kilometres only to be placed under obstetric (high risk) management. This situation needs to be addressed.

[~clover~]

As a mother of three I am concerned about our health system & maternity care.

When I had my first daughter I lived 10 minutes away from a hospital with a maternity ward, but as I was only 18 and it was my first child I could not have my baby there and had to make the forty minute drive to a bigger hospital.
I also did the same with my second daughter.

When I had my son we lived in a different area. I was living 5 minutes from the closest hospital, 40 minutes from the next one, then had a third one hour away. Not one of these three hospitals had a functioning maternity ward. Instead I had to travel two hours to my nearest maternity ward.

I also had to travel those two hours to visit my ante natal clinic as it was the closest to me. This meant that by the end of my pregnancy I had to keep my oldest child out of school for one day a fortnight, then one day a week.

Then when I was close to having my son I went to stay with my mother and father in law so I could get to the hospital in time. This meant another two weeks my daughter couldn't attend school and two weeks I had to be away from my husband as he had to stay for work.

Then when I went into labour my husband had to travel the two hours to get to me before his son was born. We are lucky that my labour was 5 hours. He made it with just over an hour to go before I had our baby.
But this meant I was alone til he got there.

I think the situation should be reevaluated. Maternity services are dropping off where they are needed. The town I live in has a high rate of teen pregnancy, yet these teens are supposed to be able to find their way to the bigger hospital to have their needs met when there is a very slim chance that they or their partners have a license or car.

When I was pregnant with my second daughter I chose to only see my general practitioner and went into labour without having seen an obstetrician once. My labour was attended by a midwife only and it was the most relaxed and natural labour I have had.

I think it is about time everyone realises that we are women. We have been giving birth for thousands of years. Why can't those of lower risk give birth in their home towns where they are close to family and friends when they will need them the most?

I would rather have just me, my husband and a midwife at a small hospital, than just my husband and I on the side of the road trying to make the two hour drive.

Can you guys read over this for me & let me know what you think first? My baby brain isn't quite sure how it sounds!

[Trillian]

I think that's fine Skye, well done.

[Neenee Jellybeanie]

I don't know what to say in mine.

[Tobily]

Trillian, Michael and Skye....

Neenee - what they're looking to hear about from mums are your personal experiences of birthing in the current system. Whether you found the system met your needs in terms of choices for care, and whether your expectations were met with care you did receive. If not, what would you have liked to see improved?

For example for mine, I will talk about how the only options given to me when I was pregnant with my first child were public or private hospital care. I had no idea about independent midwives or the safety of homebirth...in fact I didn't even know Australian women could have homebirths. I experienced a highly intervened labour involving a number of practices which are not supported by evidence, for example breaking my waters, intravenous antibiotics without presence of an infection or reason to think I would develop one, syntocinon under circumstances where it wasn't yet necessary. I'll probably mention the early breastfeeding difficulties we experienced and the (total) lack of assistance despite the fact that I live in the middle of a major capital city. I'll also talk a little about some of the "stand out" experiences I've had in hospitals supporting other mothers.

Finally, you can make some suggestions for improvements.
The big things are:

1. Provider numbers for Independent midwives. This will enable mothers to claim for their services through medicare.
2. Addressing the lack of indemnity insurance for IM's. This lack of professional insurance is a guarantee that a good proportion of qualified middies are "scared off" independent practice because it is too risky for them personally to not be insured.
3. Rural access to maternity services - the closure of maternity wards in rural areas seeing low risk, healthy women travel ridiculous distances to birth.
4. Addressing the issues in the way our system is structured that sees a high proportion of low risk women under the care of obstetricians - who are proven to intervene in their pregnancies and labours more often than midwives, with no improvement in outcomes. Intervention can be life saving when it's needed, when done "just in case" it increases risks for mother and baby.
5. Support for breastfeeding - wider access to subsidised lactation consultants and implementation of the other recommendations that came out of the previous governments breastfeeding inquiry.

OK off you go