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Great Letter my Sen Meg Lees in Mondays
Canberra times;
Thought it was great
Bye for now
Fiona
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Plea
for women to have a choice for childbirth
SENATOR MEG LEES, Senator for South
Australia
THE LARGE
majority of Australian women do not have a choice about the way they
are supported through pregnancy and childbirth.
Australian
governments and policymakers must reassess the way maternity
services are delivered in this country.
Not only are we
wasting billions of dollars on highly specialised treatment for
healthy pregnant women, the outcomes for many women and their babies
could be vastly improved by the more personal and less expensive
option of community-based midwifery.
In Australia we are
locked into a highly specialised medical model of delivering
maternity services.
The system forces women to rely on
specialist obstetricians and treats them as patients who are sick
rather than fit and healthy women who are pregnant.
World
Health Organisation research shows that while 15-20 per cent of
women in industrialised countries may need obstetric intervention in
labour and birth, 80 per cent of healthy Australian women receive at
least one intervention.
Australia also has one of the highest
rates of caesarean section in the world, well above the maximum
level recommended by WHO.
Australia should adopt a system
similar to that in New Zealand which allows women to choose a
community midwife through the mainstream public health
system.
The midwife will support the woman throughout her
pregnancy, answer all her question and help her prepare the home for
the new baby.
The same midwife will be present at the birth
and will follow up in the first important weeks of the baby's life.
More than 70 per cent of women in New Zealand choose this type of
care. Fewer than 1 per cent of Australian women have access to this
kind of one-to-one primary care from a midwife.
The reason
this choice is not available to most women is than Australian
governments of all persuasions have lacked the courage and political
will to take on the vested interests in the health system and also
to ensure there are sufficient trained midwives.
Australia's
women and children deserve
better.
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