Letter to Ministers re Maternity Services Review

As usual, please feel free to use any of it as a template for your own letters. All care no responsibility etc.

Your MP's email addresses can be found here: http://apps.aec.gov.au/esearch/

and remember to CC the Minister for Health: Nicola.Roxon.MP@aph.gov.au

Dear Minister,

I’m hearing all over the media that only 1% of women “choose” homebirth in Australia. I’m sure that if homebirth were not prohibitively expensive the figure would be very different. I only “chose” to give birth in a hospital because the choice of homebirth was not available in our public health system, I could not afford a private midwife and I was not so stupid as to attempt to give birth unattended.

Though I had perfectly satisfactory birth experiences both times, (partially because I was lucky enough to experience continuity of care in family birth centres), I would have preferred to have had them at home. Had I, and others like me, had the option of homebirth readily available you would definitely find that a greater number of women would choose homebirth.

It is incorrect to say that only 1% of women “choose” homebirth. It would be more accurate to say that 1% of women were “able to have” a home birth. I am deeply saddened to read that the maternity review does not recommend that home births should be made more readily accessible to healthy women. In fact, it seems to be suggesting that homebirth would be effectively outlawed by 2010. It seems to me that this will endanger women who are not as willing as I to resign themselves to their hospital fate. These women need a safe solution, and women such as myself would deeply appreciate the choice.

Homebirth needs more monitoring, not outlawing or ignoring. Homebirth needs to be interfered with so we don’t see more tragic scenarios where women die doing it. Two examples spring immediately to mind: A woman who decided to have a waterbirth at the top of a spiral staircase with an inexperienced birth attendant who was “uncomfortable” inserting an IV that might have saved her life (Victoria), or the ignorant and unattended woman who decide to labour in filthy mud after her waters broke (Queensland). Had safety standards for homebirths been in place and enforced neither of the above women would have had to die. Though I think both women chose to give birth in ill conceived scenarios, I view their deaths as direct consequences of a health system which is letting them down with regard to birth choices.

In my opinion, midwifery attendance at homebirths ought to be compulsory and midwives who attend homebirths need to be registered as qualified to do so (homebirths require a distinct skill set and a greater depth of experience from the attending midwife). Midwives also need rigorous safety protocols with which they are bound to comply, they need idemnity insurance, and they need to be confident that they will be well received at hospitals should their clients require hospital care.

The maternity review is the perfect opportunity to explore solutions such as those outlined above. If the argument that women ought to be able to exercise more autonomy in the birth arena does not persuade you, then perhaps this notion will: These solutions, once in place, would be cheaper than maintaining a hospital environment for healthy women who do not want to attend one. Our community would also reap the rewards postnatally with less women feeling traumatised and invaded by a hospital experience they would have preferred to avoid - postnatal depression is costly to the federal government and the community.

Please consider campaigning for safe, commonwealth funded home birth in Australia. It is too late for me, but not too late for women who come after me.

Yours faithfully,


BSc/BA Hons (Philosophy)
Mother of two.