Increased Availability of Our HBN Library — Now Located at “The Birth Place”

Since our coffee mornings have moved to Eastwood Community Centre we no longer have much storage on site. This has meant that our library which was once available to peruse and borrow from during coffee mornings was no longer available on a regular basis. After many months of sitting in boxes, waiting for a way to be accessed, our library books have been moved to a new location! They can now be found at:

“The Birth Place”

308a Glen Osmond Road, Fullarton

Our library has been added to the Birth Place’s already extensive collection and all books and other resources can be accessed between 10 am—2pm Monday—Friday.

 Homebirth Network SA Members can access ALL of the library free of charge (just show your receipt of HBN membership—if you need a new receipt please contact Claire at admin@homebirthsa.org.au) Our range includes many books (including some that are unique and hard to come by), DVD’s and magazines about pregnancy, birth and beyond.

Can a first time mama have a homebirth?

“Our results support a policy of offering healthy nulliparous and multiparous women with low risk pregnancies a choice of birth setting. Adverse perinatal outcomes are uncommon in all settings, while interventions during labour and birth are much less common for births planned in non-obstetric unit settings. For nulliparous women, there is some evidence that planning birth at home is associated with a higher risk of an adverse perinatal outcome. A substantial proportion of women having their first baby who plan to give birth in a non-obstetric unit setting are transferred to an obstetric unit.

These results will enable women and their partners to have informed discussions with health professionals in relation to clinical outcomes and planned place of birth. For policy makers, the results are important to inform decisions about service provision and commissioning. The relative cost effectiveness of the different birth settings will also be of interest to policy makers and is being compared in another component of the Birthplace Research Programme.

Further research is needed into the avoidability of adverse perinatal outcomes, the effect of staffing and service configuration on outcomes, and more detailed analyses of transfers from non-obstetric unit settings. It is unfortunate that routine maternity information systems are not currently of a sufficiently high quality to enable the analyses presented here to be repeated without carrying out another large prospective cohort study.”

BMJ says so.

I {Emma} did and I know others who have. I like to think of it as "getting it right the first time" in contrast to people who suggest that one should birth in hospital the first time just in case. What do you think?

Senate support for homebirth

Senate support private midwives

The Senate today passed a motion calling for immediate action on the obstacles facing privately practicing midwives in Australia.

"The government set aside $120 million in 2010 for midwives in private practice to access Medicare and the PBS, but hardly any have been able to do so," said Dr Richard Di Natale, the Greens Spokesperson on Health. "Because they can't get visiting access rights, they can't be by their patients if they get admitted to public hospitals."

The Senate motion called upon the government to work with states to resolve visiting access issues and to clear any other roadblocks preventing privately practicing midwives accessing Medicare and the PBS.

"This situation has to change. Mothers want and expect continuity of care, not to have to say goodbye to their chosen midwife at the hospital doors. The Senate has now recognised the issue and it is now up to the states to deliver."

Australian Greens Senator and spokesperson for women Lee Rhiannon said:

"Australia is still well behind when it comes to midwifery compared with other nations such as Norway.

"Roadblocks frustrating women's right to choose a range of birthing arrangements needs clearing.

"Midwives are known to provide extremely safe and high quality care, facilitating continuity over the pregnancy, birthing and post natal periods.

"It is time governments across Australia joined together to enable midwives to properly do their work."

Motion

Notes 

1. on 1 November 2010 $120.5 million was made available to improve choice and access to maternity services, and for eligible midwives to work in private practice Australia;
2. to provide greater access to maternity care provided by midwives, Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)  benefits were made available for services provided by eligible midwives;
3. eligible privately practicing midwives are not currently able to work to their full scope of practice and claim MBS and PBS because access and admitting rights to public hospitals have not been established by state and territory governments.

Calls on the Minister for Health and Ageing to work with COAG and Australian health ministers to 

1. urge state and territory action on access and admitting rights to public hospitals for eligible privately practicing midwives;
2. investigate any further support necessary for privately practicing midwives to transition into private practice, to work to their full scope of practice and access MBS and PBS benefits; and
3. consult with stakeholders.

Surveys - please contribute!

‎Homebirth Australia is conducting a survey of women and a survey of midwives to help us to find out what you need from homebirth services in Australia. We represent you and we need your help to find out what homebirth services will suit your needs.

State and Territory Health Ministers are considering proposed models for homebirth in Australia. One of these proposed models is for midwives to only be able to attend homebirths for women who meet certain criteria.

Please help us to understand how this would impact you and your birth choices so we can represent your interests.

Please fill out the survey below if you are a woman and circulate amongst your networks.
Here is the survey for women

Homebirth Women Survey

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Here is the survey for midwives and other care providers - Homebirth Australia would like to know what your experiences of providing homebirth services to women are.

State and Territory Health Ministers are considering proposed models for homebirth in Australia. One of these proposed models is for midwives to only be able to attend homebirths for healthy women who meet certain criteria.

Please help us to understand how this would impact your practice and your ability to support women so we can work towards creating the best homebirth services possible for Australian women. Please circulate amongst your networks.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JLDZ6NQ

Homebirth in the news

Here are some of the titles of articles in the news at the moment. What a positive round up!

Midwives win hospital rights

Study backs home births for mothers

Calls to save money with home births for second babies

HOME BIRTHS 'GOOD FOR NHS AND MOTHERS'

Some home truths on a woman's right to choose

Home births on the rise in California Home births best

I received an email from the lovely Kat Williams the other day, letting me know that she is no longer taking on new clients as she is growing her own delicious babe, and it gave me a moment to ponder. I wrote recently that there was a growing garden of midwives available and yet Kat closing her books temporarily means that the entire southern suburbs and towns are without a local midwife.

The Australian Private Midwives Association recently asked where midwives were practising, and in reply SA was described as:

The options in SA are limited because almost all of the midwives live in a similar geographical area. Most of us travel but it still is limited. Of the 9 working and taking on clients, 6 live in the Adelaide Hills and the next one coming into it also live up here. There are 3 who are Medicare eligible, 1 eligible midwife about to start, 3 who are not eligible but are registered.

I know that I am happy to travel south, and that others are and do, but I also know that some won't. That some only want to work locally is the beauty of independent midwifery for the midwives but the limiting factor in giving the service that women deserve!

So dear readers - do you think that not having a local midwife (though really - what is local?) limits your choices? How far away would you be happy for her to travel? Is your location relative to a hospital a part of your decision to, or not to homebirth?

Membership form 2012

Look for a membership form? Here 'tis!