Independent midwives, birth advocates, birth workers and doulas of South Australia
This list is not exhaustive - the Homebirth Network of South Australia is updating information and will add to this page regularly. If you'd like your details added here, or amended, please contact the webmistress.
Providing continuity of care out in the community, these amazing women are the backbone of homebirth in South Australia. They enable homebirth to be a safe and secure birthing option.
Each may also provide services such as lactation consultancy, antenatal information groups, active birth workshops, women's health and contraceptive advice, natural family planning, post-natal depression counselling. Please contact them directly for more information about individual skills and services offered.
Remember that the relationship you will establish with your care provider during the course of your pregnancy and birth will be a very close and personal one, so ensure that the care provider you select is the one who you feel the most at ease with. You may need to speak with several care providers about both your and their requirements, including the avaliability of the care provider around the time that your baby is due and their travel arrangements.
Independent Registered Homebirth Midwives
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Mobile: 041 785 1883
Email: elduende@chariot.net.au
Roz is a mother and a practising midwife who believes childbirth is a significant and transformational event in a woman and families life. She has maintained a caseload midwifery practice providing continuity of care in public and private health settings, including family homes for the past 18 years. In addition to regularly facilitating Active Birth Workshops with Coast Yoga Centre in Adelaide, she has provided guest lectures and placements for undergraduate and postgraduate midwifery students at two South Australian Universities.
Roz holds a range of formal qualifications in addition to Midwifery, including endorsement as an Eligible Midwife, Registered Nurse, Registered Mental Health Nurse and Lactation Consultant. She is politically active and remains convinced that the status and health of women and infants is integrally linked to strengthening cultural, educational, professional practice, legislative and industrial frameworks for midwifery that enable choice, safety, and quality in maternity service delivery for all Australian families. Toward this end Roz has participated in and served on a diverse range of local and national professional, statutory, government and community initiatives and inquiries to enhance these frameworks. From 2003 – March 2008 she was Joint Midwifery Unit Head of the expanding public health Midwifery Group Practices at the Adelaide Women’s & Children’s Hospital. Currently Roz is the WCH Foundation Midwifery Fellow undertaking PhD studies into federal funding reform of maternity services at Flinders University, where she holds academic status and undertakes occasional teaching and curriculum development in undergraduate and postgraduate midwifery programs. She is a past National Director on the Board of the Australian College of Midwives, a current Director on the Australian Nursing & Midwifery Accreditation Council and the midwifery representative on Health Workforce Australia’s Standing Advisory Committee for Health Professionals.
Mobile: 0404 370 701 (SMS if you require call back)
Email: juliegarratt@ihug.com.au
My name is Julie Garratt and I am a Registered Midwife and International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.
I work in private practice across the full scope of midwifery care including but not limited to pre conception, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and postnatal care. I support women to birth at home or in a venue of their choice with their own Midwife. I believe BIRTH IS A NATURAL LIFE EVENT and humans have perfected it over thousands of generations. All women should be given the opportunity to birth undisturbed where they feel safe and nurtured.
I understand that many women have had difficult birthing experiences in the past and have a complex journey to negotiate during subsequent pregnancies. I also have a strong commitment to helping first time parents to gain confidence in their lives with their new baby. My care also encompasses partner and sibling inclusivity as I respect that birth has a profound effect on all involved.
Apart from homebirths, I've worked at Mt Barker hospital, in rural continuity of care in Chrystal Brook, as a birth centre midwife in a tertiary hospital and spent time at a charity birthing centre in the Philippines (helping up to six women birth in a single 12 hour shift) not ideal but quite an adventure! It also gave me the opportunity to consolidate my skills in normal birth outside of the hospital system.
I can offer you antenatal care, childbirth, postnatal and breastfeeding support. Homebirth or support in hospital in some circumstances. I also have several birthing pools to choose from if you wish to water birth at home. These services as in all things are negotiated in partnership with you. YOUR BIRTH, YOUR WAY.
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Phone: 0411 160 380 (SMS if you require call back)
Email: emma@downtobirth.com.au
www.downtobirth.com.au
www.downtobirth.com.au
Women are amazing and awe-inspiring. That is the truth at the heart of my practice. Midwives are amazing and impressive. Midwives are skilled in a craft that goes beyond science and measures and into the hands-on, heart and soul of what makes us human. Midwives have to be confident in themselves and their skills. Birth is amazing and powerful. It is transformative of women into mothers, partners into parents, and couples into families, in a way that ceremony and pomp can't.
I am in my 30s, a mother of one homebirthed babe, and a recently graduated registered midwife practising in the Adelaide Hills and down the southern side of Adelaide to Willunga - and maybe further if you call me and chat. I am active in my local area, which is a new one to me but one that I am enjoying discovering! I am a midwife who is is supportive of the birthing woman, encouraging consideration of the path to take because in the end, pregnant women birth within a complicated, complex and challenging construct that doesn't change the fact - that women are amazing.
0417845612 | 8388 9222
marijkesophiamse62@hotmail.com
Introducing Marijke Eastaugh, Midwife, Lactation Consultant
My journey in becoming a Midwife started with a light globe moment as I watched the five pregnant, heavily pregnant women at Yalata Aboriginal Community go about their business. At the time I was a registered Nurse and tried hard to remember what I’d learnt about emergency birth, Ceduna was 3 hours away. I was disillusioned with Nursing and a system that seemed to perpetuate illness, I did not like hospitals and, in my usual optimistic way, I thought ‘ “I know, I’ll become a Midwife and do homebirths”. Easy really, my naïve assumption was that all women had this choice. This stemmed from my childhood experience with a mother who was Dutch and a father who was English. I had lived overseas up until the age of twelve and assumed all systems were the same. Very quickly reality set in.
I did my Midwifery certificate at the Queen Victoria Hospital. Then apprenticed myself to Fiona Kemp, predominantly. , Working with other Midwives when the opportunity arose. By the 7th birth and newly pregnant myself I felt ”ready” to be main Midwife. This was in 1987 and ever since I have had a passion about women’s choices to birth at home or have the same Midwife for continuity of care no matter where you birth.
Recently I have jumped the hoops to become an eligible Midwife . I live in the Hills in Macclesfield and use Mt Barker Hospital as my transfer hospital if appropriate. My collaborative partner at the moment is Andre Klomp an Obstetrician whom I have worked with for about 17 years. For the last 13 years I been working at Mt Barker as Community Midwife doing postnatal home visits. Breastfeeding being another passion and great area of interest. I have been lucky enough to job share this position but recently with my Midwfery Practice Review change was needed.
I am happy to birth with women at home (who live in the Hills) or at Mt Barker, I use a back up Midwife for homebirths and wish to only book 2 women a month. I am heavily involved in the College of Midwives, currently serving as National Director, this does take me interstate for a few days every 3 months.
Any enquiries please contact me; 0417845612, 8388 9222, marijkesophiamse62@hotmail.com
Wishing you well in motherhood, Marijke.
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Home: 08 8391 5259
Mobile: 0402 141 709
Email: wendy_midwife@optusnet.com.au
My name is Wendy Thornton. I live at Hahndorf , with hubby Peter, who has been my life partner since we were both 18yrs young!!! We have 5 beautiful offspring....Leith 26yrs, Nikki 25yrs, Tabitha 15yrs, Rebekah 11yrs and Kalan 5yrs. I am an Independent Midwife birthing with families wanting home birth. I was born in New Zealand where I did my original training as a general obstetric nurse. I saw my first birth at the tender age of 17 and experienced the wonderous joy surrounding this beautiful life event and knew then that I would be a midwife one day.
Peter and I were destined to live in Adelaide - living here from 1981 till 1984, then being drawn back in 1988. And whilst I have thought many times about returning home and working as a midwife in New Zealand the truth is that my heart totally belongs in Adelaide and I love working as a Midwife here. I am proud of my midwifery training at the old Queen Victoria Hospital in the early 1990's and I followed that with working at the WCH , Mt Barker Hospital and then Murray Bridge Hospital but I really learnt what a true Midwife is when I started working out in the community.
I have an innate trust in nature's infinite wisdom - in our ability to grow our babies, birth our babies and nurture our babies. I know not to interfere, to wait patiently and to trust. The relationship between myself and the birthing woman is so sacred and unique. I truly believe that when women are physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally prepared for the journey of birth and motherhood they are able to trust in their ability to birth and their experience is both positive and empowering. The last 20 yrs have taught me so much and in some ways the greatest gift of all is that I see something unique and learn something more at every birth! So my journey will keep on going.
Birth Workers
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Specialist in Pregnancy and Birth Support
0432 514 772
rose-brooke@hotmail.com
I trained here in S.A as a Midwife and after working in a hospital for a couple of years I moved to New Zealand so I could work as a Lead Maternity Carer (Independent Midwife).
While working there I birthed with women in their homes, or birth centre. I returned home (S.A.) in 2007 to have my own babies, including a breech homebirth.
I am very passionate about the strengths of women and their families, and the awakening and healing powers of home birthing. My aim as a birth worker is to return the control to women and their families so they can create the experience they desire.
I am a Birth Worker, currently attending 1 homebirth a month. Please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail me for a chat.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------rose-brooke@hotmail.com
I trained here in S.A as a Midwife and after working in a hospital for a couple of years I moved to New Zealand so I could work as a Lead Maternity Carer (Independent Midwife).
While working there I birthed with women in their homes, or birth centre. I returned home (S.A.) in 2007 to have my own babies, including a breech homebirth.
I am very passionate about the strengths of women and their families, and the awakening and healing powers of home birthing. My aim as a birth worker is to return the control to women and their families so they can create the experience they desire.
I am a Birth Worker, currently attending 1 homebirth a month. Please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail me for a chat.
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72 King William Rd, NORTH ADELAIDE SA
Phone: (08) 8161 7819 Email: cywhs.muhmgp@cywhs.sa.gov.au
Midwife-led continuity of carer model, offering known midwife plus back-up midwife through pregnancy, birth and first six weeks postnatal. Midwife consults with obstetric and other staff as needed. Takes women of all risk categories, but limited to about 1,000 women per year, some geographical limits apply. Care provided in community, home and hospital. Book in via first appointment with Women's Outpatients Clinic on (08) 8161 7592. Waterbirth and VBAC supported . No charges to public patients. No private patients or GP-share care: care is midwife-led.
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