Has anyone done this yet?

[BellyBelly]

Please see the link below and double please take the short amount of time to print out the letters to post to our health ministers or you can email them if you prefer - we need power in numbers for this one. If printing and posting is not possible, then you can use email, if you include your full name, street address, contact numbers etc.

The Hon Nicola Roxon MP
Nicola.Roxon.MP@aph.gov.au

The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP
Tanya.Plibersek.MP@aph.gov.au

Letter to print & send for midwifery

Or the full letter is at the bottom of this post.

Even if its not the choice you would made, choice is what this is all about. We need this, women need this and midwives need this. Please help us and help women have REAL choice - not to have a c/s or vaginal birth - but a huge choice in their care providers.

<insert your name and address>

The Hon Nicola Roxon
Minister for Health and Ageing
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
<remember to change this address for each letter and to delete everything in italics!>

<insert the date>



Dear Minister <when writing to your local member, if they’re not a minister, substitute their name: Dear Mr/Ms Surname>

I am writing to you to ask you to provide Federal Government support to women who choose to give birth at home with the assistance of an independent midwife.

<Add a paragraph of personal information if you wish – why you support homebirth, your own experience and why you think this action is important.>

I am aware that support for expanding midwifery care was part of the ALP’s pre-election platform on Maternal and Child Health Services, in particular:

• Reviewing the Medicare schedule to include midwives in the provision of maternity care and to facilitate the expansion of midwife-led care; and
• Considering models of indemnification to facilitate the practice of midwives as experts and primary care givers in normal birth.

I look forward to the Rudd Labor Government implementing these policies as soon as possible as a way of providing better, safer birth choices for Australian mothers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recognises midwives as “the most appropriate and cost effective type of health care provider to be assigned to the care of women in normal pregnancy and birth,” and the safety of planned homebirth is now well established in both Australian and international research.

Midwifery care is a preventative health measure which not only assists in keeping well women and their babies out of hospital beds but represents a significant cost saving to Government. A birth at home costs significantly less than even the most straight-forward hospital birth and women who birth at home are less likely to have interventions including assisted delivery and caesarean section, or distressed babies. Women’s and their partners’ satisfaction with birth is also increased and women are more likely to breastfeed. .

I also feel strongly that this is an issue of choice - supporting all women to choose the place and the practitioner that they feel most comfortable when giving birth.

I would really appreciate your support for this issue in the lead up to the May 2008 budget.

I look forward to your response.

Kind regards

<insert your name>