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

here is mine.. I hope it is ok... :dunno:

Dear Mrs Bryant,

I write to you in regards to the current system, in which women today are giving birth. It has come to my attention, that I like many other women in this country, are unhappy with the level of care and the experiences they have undergone, in said system.

I had my first child coming up to 6 months ago, and at the time had minimal knowledge of what I was about to encounter or even what to expect. During my pregnancy I had heard a lot of different stories from different women and the treatment that they were receiving during their 9 months. It suddenly occurred to me that I was not receiving treatment that other women were that was seen as ?routine?. During my whole pregnancy, I had 1 appointment at the hospital, due to continual blunders with appointments.

When time came for me to actually give birth, there were still many things not explained to me. I was told due to meconium in my fluid that I was to be induced. I was extremely nervous about this prospect as this was also something that had no been explained to me. Once seeing my anxiety about the issue, instead of having the procedure properly explained to me I was made to feel ?silly? about being nervous as it was ?just a needle?. Now after giving birth and reading lots of different reports on the drug used I have come to realise that it wasn?t ?just a needle? and should have been taken more seriously and clarified to both myself and my partner. I was also not told until I was in labour that my blood group was A negative, and then had the dangers of what it meant if my daughter had of been a positive, explained to me and my partner. Quite distressing to be honest hearing about this considering the traumatic experience I was already having.

During my labour, I was not given the choice to be active and walk around, I was barely allowed to have a shower, even though I had previously broke my water and needed to shower desperately. As a result of practically being bed ridden, I was forced into an Emergency Caesarean . I feel if I had of had the opportunity to begin with an active labour I would of progressed further than 2 cm dialated and been able to give birth naturally. I honestly feel like I had that experience taken away from me, without a say from my part. That was MY birth not to mention again, my FIRST birth, in which I will never get back.

Something about the current situation needs to be done. Not only was my birthing experience traumatic but the afterwards experience was just as bad. I was given misleading information by midwifes on breastfeeding, which as a result ended my breastfeeding journey at 10 weeks, not to mention the fact that I was bullied by midwifes on a few different occasions which I had to write a report about.
Not only is Pre-natal care important, but what about the labour and birthing process as well as post-natal. Where was the support that was deserved? There needs to be more support and MORE education for the processes and procedures that are carried out within these hospitals. I feel that we are not in control of our own birthing experiences anymore, which should not be the case. We need information and education in our pre natal appointments, we need information and education in our labour and birthing experiences, we need information and education in our post natal care. But most of all, above anything we need rights and respect for the choices and decisions that we make about how we want to birth our children.

Yours Sincerely,

Kirsty Lee Forbes

Great work everyone!!! Keep them coming in, this is our one big chance!!!!

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Dear Skye,

Thank you for your submission in response to the Maternity Services Review Discussion Paper, “Improving Maternity Services in Australia: A Discussion Paper from the Australian Government”.

Your submission, along with all other submissions and information, research and expertise assembled from other sources will be used by the Department of Health and Ageing in the development of a report to the Minister for Health and Ageing, the Hon Nicola Roxon, MP.

Thank you again for your contribution to this important process.

Yours sincerely



Rosemary Bryant
Chief Nurse and Midwifery Officer
Maternity Services Review
Policy Development Branch
Primary and Ambulatory Care Division
Department of Health and Ageing

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My reply I got this morning. I'm glad coz I wasn't sure it went through.

YAY!!! Well done everyone, keep them coming it closes at the end of the month... even if you can only spare 15 minutes, thats all we need, a vote of support for change...

will write tonight...need to keep this page though so i can find it later...thanks for the link guys. terrific as usual!

The Maternity Coalition has published this information on their website if you need some background and help getting started :)

Maternity Coalition-Advocacy

This is mine, is it ok?, might need some help in the spelling department, not my strong point

Dear Mrs Bryant

I am writing in regards to the situation women are faced with when it comes to birthing their babies.

When it came to making the decision where I was to birth my second child, I thought it would be an easy one, I had health insurance so naturaly I would go to the closest private hospital.
Now please bare in mind that I was over two hours away from this hospital and the closest birthing public hospital which was Rockhampton. I could of gone to Emerald (two hrs in the other direction), but if there were any complications then I would of been shiped to Rockhampton. Our closest hospital didnt have a maternity ward so you couldnt birth there unless bub was already coming out.
So I was to go private, well that was untill I found out that if I went private I would not be able to get an epidural, the anethitist's in town had decided that none of them wanted to get out of bed to give a labouring women an epidural at two in the morning so they wouldnt give it to anyone no matter what time of day.
I wasnt realy sure if id need an epidural but I wanted that option and if I went private (something that I was going to be out of pocket $2000 if i did), then I would of had that choice taken away.

Ok, so now I was going public, it was decide that I would be induced on my due date due to the fact that I was so far from town and didnt want to run the risk of birthing my baby on the side of the road as the two women who had lived in our house had done prior to me, and the fact that we didnt have any family or friend in Rockhampton to stay with and couldnt afford to stay in a hotel for that long.
So my due date came and I was induced and five very painfull hrs later ( due to the fact that my body wasnt ready to give birth) my son was born.
I can't complain about the labur ward as it was lovely and the midwives that I had were great, but the maternity ward was something out of the stone age, it was freezing and I had 5 other people in the same room as me, 2-3 of these where sugical patients as the surgical ward had no beds left and at least one of them snored like a train everynight, so not only was I up every two hours feeding I was kept awake in between times aswell.
On the second day I was ready to go home but because my baby had very mild jaundice and I lived so far away they wanted to put him under lights, under suferance I agreed which I wish I had'nt. He was not put into a humidy crib as is normaly the case but striped and had a protable light placed over him, so here was my two day old baby with no clothes on in a freezing drafty room with nothing to keeo him warm but an ultra violet light. As the time went on his temperature droped repetadly and I would have to put him inside my clothes to warm him up, finaly at two in the morning with my baby screaming beacuse he was cold and me in tears because I was told not to take him out of the light a lovely Kiwi midwife came in and said to just pick him up and cuddle him, she said that the equipment that the hospital had was so out dated that it wasnt funny and it was riduculas to leave him like that.

So my question to you is do you think that this is ok, in a country like Australia that is so wealthy?

I would like to have a home water birth for my next child but at $4000 and with the change to the baby bonus I dont think we will be able to afford it, Can you tell me why I should miss out on this experience just because I have a morgage and household bills and dont have the extra monet to pay for it.

Why is it that in New Zealand free inderpendant midwives are availible but in Australia it is not.

I would like to see women have more free choices in where and how they birth their babies, weither they choose to do it at home or in a hospital, in water or on a bed, if they want to birth standing on their head then they should have the right to choose and have the support they need to do so with out being critisised by medical proffesionals.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, I do hope that when the time comes you and everyone else involved make the right decision's to benifit and provide this wonderful country's women with the services that we need, at the end of the day if we need more babys than should'nt it be right to provide a great maternity system to birth them in.

Ragards

Shayann

What is the address we have to send this to

I am a very happy 52 year old expectant grandmother. I want to take a moment to express what I know can be achieved when we use our voice to make changes happen.
I was a childbirth educator trained in Australia by A.C.E and PCA. I have spent much of my working life lobbying for various changes in birthing and post natal practices in Sydney and Nepean area.
I was the community based rep on the Ante Natal Review Committee at Nepean hospital some years ago which was created by the government in an attempt to "upgrade" hospital ante-natal classes (with varying degrees of success).
I was a NMAA (now Breastfeeding Australia) counselor for about 12 years. Our Lower Blue Mountains group (led at the time by a truly committed and focused lay-person who I shouldn't name without her permission) provided hours of counseling services to women in the post natal ward at Nepean Hospital. Our group was very heavily involved in providing education days for interested health professionals at Nepean hospital at this time. These "education days" were extremely well attended by doctors and midwives alike and helped provide an atmosphere of respect and cooperation in breastfeeding practices in the post natal wards at that time.
I was the first extra support person to attend a birth at Nepean Hospital. This was achieved through one woman who felt a strong need for extra help and support during labour. This woman spent time during her pregnancy writing letters, calling and meeting with people in order to make a case for my inclusion in her choice of birthing attendants. I had some input during this process but mostly this one woman who wanted me to attend her during her birth drove this change. What she did meant that all subsequent birthing women were allowed to have extra support people available at this hospital if they chose.
Without the call for change nothing changes . If we are silent long enough things start to slip backwards.
I had 2 of my babies at home which cost $1000 (each) at the time. Fear, inadequate and inaccurate information and increasing rates of litigation have driven up the cost of giving birth at home and, sadly, it is becoming prohibitive for many women at a time when there are such heavy financial demands on families.
My beautiful pregnant daughter brought this, her favourite forum to my attention. It is wonderful to see the passion is still alive and well. I will certainly write my thoughts to the gov on this matter, in particular the need for support and financial assistance for those women who wish to give birth at home and for the midwives and doctors who wish to attend them.
Bless you for providing a forum to help drive such changes.

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

The email address to send in your submissions is:

maternity.services.review@health.gov.au

Fantastic job ladies let's keep them coming :clap:

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.

Here's mine. How is it?

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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

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I just got an email acknowledgement from Rosemary Bryant :)

Hopefully it is all taken on board!