Australian Government acts to give women greater access to midwives and improve care!

An important update on the outcome of the Standing Committee on Health in regards to midwifery care.  So exciting to see this sensible development.  I know many people have been working tirelessly on getting the government to understand the issues.  My deepest gratitude to you all.

MEDIA RELEASE: 11 August 2012
Contact: Liz Wilkes 0423 580 585

Standing Committee on Health Decision will give women greater access to Midwives and improve Care.

Today’s decision by the Standing Committee on Health to enable midwives to collaborate with hospitals rather than individual doctors provides a welcome relief to Medicare provider midwives struggling to provide Medicare funded care to women.

“Until now government policy designed to provide women with Medicare access to private midwifery care has been to date severely restricted by obstetricians not wanting to be involved” said Liz Wilkes President of Midwives Australia.

“The recognition from every Health Minister across the country that midwives work collaboratively with doctors in hospitals and do not need individual doctor sign off is entirely appropriate. We applaud the sense they have shown” said Ms Wilkes

Midwives Australia has seen the legislation requiring midwives to collaborate with individual doctors has created unnecessary administrative burden and has created opportunity for medical veto over women’s access to Medicare rebates.

“What we are seeing here is the opportunity for midwives to develop license agreements and contracts with hospitals which enable true collaborative practice to continue”

“The whole hospital system relies on obstetricians being in the right place to deal with referrals of women. It is not a change in safe practice.”

“Midwifery care should not and does not require the presence of an individual doctor at a tertiary hospital when many other doctors are on staff, what matters is that there is a doctor present who is able to accept referral and transfer as doctors are employed to do this on a daily basis.”

“This week a Melbourne study found the care of a known midwife reduced the need for a caesarean section and actually improved outcomes. It is comforting to know that all Health Ministers agree on the need to make the care of a known midwife more accessible to Australian women.” said Ms Wilkes.

 We hope you will find it informative.

Best regards,
Midwives Australia

Thanks Liz Wilkes for this update! 

Natural Births A Major Cause Of Post-Traumatic Stress? Wrong!

A Tel Aviv University researcher has linked natural birth with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Natural Births A Major Cause Of Post-Traumatic Stress

Interestingly, some people consider that PTSD is a very modern trauma

According to the Tel Aviv study, 1 in 3 postnatal women in their study sample showed signs of PTSD while a small percentage were severely affected.

What causes PTSD?  A posting on medical news today in 2009 states that PTSD is triggered by a traumatic event and that:

"The sufferer of PTSD may have experienced or seen an event that caused extreme fear, shock and/or a feeling of helplessness".

"a woman is four times more likely to develop PTSD than a man. Psychiatrists say this is probably because women run a higher risk of experiencing interpersonal violence, such as sexual violence"
Traumatic events that commonly trigger PTSD in women - these include rape, sexual molestation, physical attack, being threatened with a weapon, childhood physical abuse.

Given that labour and birth are innately highly emotional, vulnerable times for women - and that is to enable the liberation of the 'love hormone' oxytocin - the emotional 'fixative' for attachment, bonding and breastfeeding - the feeling is a natural 'high' - the reward for labour and birth;  care needs to be respectful, supportive, kind and competent for labour to go well.  Women need to feel in control, to have agency and feel safe during labour and birth.   Numerous studies have found that women labour and birth well when they have caregivers they know and trust.

Photo of joy filled mother with newborn

Women who have their emotional needs met in labour and birth enter motherhood feeling awesome!

Feeling good after giving birth is not about whether it was natural or not, it is not about whether you coped with the pain or not, although labour is much harder to handle when you are not in a good environment or in control of what's happening to you - it's about how you are treated, how well supported you are, how protected and private your birth territory is and how well you feel in control of what's done to you.

I think the good doctors need to investigate what is going on in their hospitals! They are 'barking up the wrong tree'.