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

[lilmisshavachat]

This is my submission, but what is the actual email adresss I can send it to or will bellybelly forward them all.

Dear Mrs Bryant,

I am currently trying to conceive my first child and as this has been taking quite a bit of time I have spent these months researching my birth options in this country.

I am lucky enough to live in a city that has a midwife led birth centre however I beleive that availability to book in there is quite difficult due to over subscription. I do not wish to birth in a hospital if I can avoid it due to what I see as over medicalisation of birth leading to unecessary interventions. A view I feel is supported by our ceasarian rate being above the World Health Organisation recommended level. I feel there is a lack of education about the benefits of a natural birth and that there are not enough resources being provided to encourage this act. I do beleive in having the hospital system for high risk and emergencies during birth however I strongly feel that a midwife led industry is the way we should be heading.

If independant midwives were afforded medicare backing and access to affordable insurance this would lead the way for the beginning of privately run birthing centres as well as government funded birth centres where ever the industry saw a need. These would employ fully trained midwives that could perhaps have an association with an obstetric practice that would then see and treat at a hospital any patient that showed complications during their birth.

By employing midwives who are trained in natural ways to reduce pain during childbirth and who also advocate techniques to allow a more relaxed and focussed birth process the need for drugs and interventions should lessen with time and we will see a lower ceasarian rate.

Obstetricians are surgeons by trade, they operate, that's what they do. Midwives assist the birth of babies. They also play an important role in pre-natal and ante-natal care as well as being able to train as lactation consultants. If we support Midwife led services such as birth centres and also by supporting midwife assisted homebirth we free up the obstetricians to be more available in their role.

We are slowly losing the confidence in our bodies to birth our babies and if we don't look at changing that soon it will be lost for good. At the moment in Australia there does not appear to be a lot of information regarding natural birthing practises at the begining of a pregnancy journey as most doctors will refer you to an Obstetrician and the Obstetricians aren't really going to refer you to a birthing centre or midwife based care because they would be doing themselves out of a job, so essentially unless you know someone who has bucked the trend and opted for a non medicalised delivery, chances are you have little or no information as to these choices. I would like to see the Government provide a number of Midwife led birth centres and word of mouth about the experience a mother had there would change the face of how we birth our children in this country. Thank you for your time and a chance to voice my choices.

Yours Sincerely

[Tobily]

The email address to send in your submissions is:

maternity.services.review@health.gov.au

Fantastic job ladies let's keep them coming

[minnie]

I am writing to express both my happiness at the positive experience birthing my first child was, but also to say how disappointing it is that I would not be supported by the Government if a chose a home birth in the future.

I had my first child at the Mercy Family Birth Centre in Heidelberg, Victoria, 15 months ago. I had a very straight forward pregnancy and a 12 hour, straight forward (but by no means easy!!) labour. I had wonderful support from my partner who is a health professional and the midwives basically left us alone to get on with the job, aside from coming in to observe how things were going and check blood pressure etc. I found the care to be exactly what we wanted at the family birth centre- the midwives were there should we need them but did not intervene or try and take over at any point. It was a wonderful experience and I found the pre and post natal care to be fantastic. We went home less than 24 hours after our daughter was born and found the home visits frequent and thorough enough so that we did not feel abandoned by the health system just because we were feeling ready to go home so soon.

I will never forget the wonderful midwife, who was there when i delivered my daughter, saying before we left for home "we won't see you two for the next baby- you can do that on your own at home!".

I would dearly love to have a home birth next time and am so mystified as to why midwives are not medicare funded. It just seems so crazy that fit and healthy women with no hint of complications are not allowed to birth at home with a midwife- instead we must endure the car ride to hospital (usually with very intense contractions as we have stayed home as long as possible), that car ride and the arrival at hospital and into a strange room almost always slows labour and totally interrupts any rhythm you had coping with the contractions and then take up a hospital bed and other resources which would be better used by someone who actually needed it.

I urge you to seriously consider giving women such as myself the choice to homebirth with a midwife- not only so I can bring my next baby into the world the way I would like to but so I can free up resources for those that need them.

Thankyou for listening to my story and suggestions.

[Antheia]

Here's mine. How is it?

Dear Ms Bryant, I am writing to you in response to your request for submissions to the Maternity Services Review.

I had my first baby in a public hospital. She was born by assisted delivery with vacuum extraction because i had not been given proper information on how to birth properly. I was laying flat on my back and i was not pushing correctly. The vacuum then made her shoulder get stuck on the way out.

My main care provider was shared care with my GP and the midwives at the hospital. Each visit i saw a different midwife. I had to explain myself over and over again. It felt impersonal. I felt like a number. I did not receive any information about how to deal with the birth both physically and emotionally. I went into the birth knowing hardly anything. I was not even told to read books etc.

During the pregnancy i had a lack of support and felt like i had no choices. In the end i developed pre-eclampsia. Due to this, i was induced. I knew nothing about being induced. They didn't tell me anything and i just went with it thinking they knew more about my body than i did.

During the birth i experienced a lot of negitivity. I had only the support of my husband. And due to being only 18 years old i felt i was being treated like an outcast. I was told to do 'this and 'that'. Never was i asked what 'I' wanted. I was given Pethadine when i did not even ask for it. My baby was taken away from me straight after the birth to 'give us both a rest'.

After the birth i developed PND. I did not bond with my daughter. I felt like my body had failed and i was told so. I was told my body was too small to birth my baby. I tried to breastfeed but after 2 days of no support and no one showing me what to do i was told by a midwife to just give her a bottle of formula. Thinking she knew best, i did so. To this day I regret making that descion. I believe if i had been given the right support and the right information my experience would have been much better.

My subsequent child was born vaginally without any assistance. My care provider was a team of midwives who i only saw 2 during the entirity of my pregnancy.

During the pregnancy i experienced a lot of support. I was given choices and i felt in control. Even when my labour had to be helped along with syntocinon i still felt in control the whole time. At no point was the synto or the epidural i had pushed on me. I was left to discuss it all with my husband for a couple of hours before we made our descion.

After the birth i experienced even more support. I was shown how to properly breastfeed and i bonded with my son right away.

I am now pregnant with my third child and i am having a homebirth. I have had to hire a midwife that lives 2.5 hours away from me because there is no one closer to me. We are struggling to pay for it but i will do what i can to have the birth i want and deserve.

I believe our maternity system needs to provide better support for midwives. They need to have medicare provider numbers so that more women can choose to have a homebirth without any restictions. They need better support from all of the maternity medical profession.

We also need more birth centre that are not so hard to get into and more free-standing birth centres. We need better support for women who are planning a VBAC and better promotion of VBAC as an option. Women need choices and midwives need to be able to give them those choices.

Yours sincerely,
Tegan Archer

[Kitt3n]

I just got an email acknowledgement from Rosemary Bryant

Hopefully it is all taken on board!