I have been busily trying to catch up with all the many posts about the review that are all over the internet. There are lots of articles and critiques, pros and cons and a comment by a good friend Rachele on one of the boards was in the vein of: Where are the women in all of this?
She is right. With so many submissions being from women about their birth experiences and about homebirth why isn’t anyone listening to them.
hello obstetrically led birth
Of course there was concern expressed about the level of freebirth. This is sometimes (not always) due to the fact that there is no midwife available. Although the review mentioned freebirth they didn’t go into any of the possible reasons such as lack of midwifery availability.
On a career level (lots of women forget that it is our lively hood) I’m not looking forward to becoming an illegal practitioner in July 2010. This is not really the fault of the review. They just did what we expected and sided with the medical establishment. Something that I have been saying over and over would happen. There is no way on earth midwives would get a provider number and to be honest it’s not that important. I don’t care if a gp has to prescribe a test or a drug. I don’t mind if they book into a hospital as back up to get a scan. Regardless to the inference that midwives don’t collaborate this is untrue. The only time I have ever had difficulty is if a doctor won’t speak to me. Not as is suggested I won’t speak to them.
goodbye natural birth
This is the doing of the college of midwives who have recommended that when national registration happens all midwives in the community should have PI insurance. They worked on the assumption, as seen on their website, that the government would have to sort it out. WELL THEY HAVE, they will just make it illegal to practice without it.
Considering half the midwives in the country don’t belong to the college (and I’m sure as they work in private establishments they won’t qualify for registration) and of the numbers that do belong the homebirth midwives are very vocal, it makes you wonder who they are actually representing. It doesn’t appear to be their members.
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This makes me mad! We Women are not cattle to be shipped around, prodded and poked at some hospitals convienience, pumped full of drugs…what happened? What is wrong with doing it the way nature intended?
If this goes through, i will end up freebirthing my next bub. I am NOT going to a hospital.
I worry about this same thing happening here in the US….well, I suppose it already has in many states. I wish that people (government people and consumer people) would understand that the fastest way to get rid of midwives is to regulate them. Oh wait…maybe that IS what the government peoples have in mind!!! “Where are the women in all of this” is a very good question.
Great contrasting pictures, too. I was born in the manner of the the first photo, from an unconscious mother….and my own son was born in a manner similar to the second photo (as will be this baby growing inside right now). It is so painful for me to see photos of forceps dragging babies out.
there seems to be a confusing interplay of a few different things going on at the moment – does it mean that, come 2010, only midwives working in hospitals will have PI insurance, and therefore registration/legal status?
I have both witnessed and experienced personally birthrape and the torture of an instrumental delivery. I just cannot fathom how anyone can possible believe that inserting forceps into a vagina and dragging out a baby by it’s poor little head is anything BUT that.
This review has saddened and disgusted me and I cannot belp but feel pessimistic for the future of maternity services in Australia. I really believed that the tide towards wholistic midwifery care for normal pregnancy and birthing was turning away from this medically sanctioned abuse.
Now I just feel revolted that the AMA and RANZCOG have been given IMs heads on a platter.
I am literally sickened to the core of my being.
Lisa, your blog is wonderful.
Like a beacon of light that shines in the opressive and abusive darkness that is Australian obstetrics.
I was so frustrated and upset when we finally got our legislation here in British Columbia, Canada and we realized that homebirth and autonomous practise had been negotiated away and the midwives would be relegated to pimping for the doctors.
I was venting to one of our longtime midwives and pioneer home birthers. She just gave me a patient smile and said “Gloria, when there weren’t any midwives, we found the women who had some nursing skills and birth experience and invited them to come over and help us have our babies. That’s how midwifery got started up again in Canada in the 70s. You have to have faith in birthing women. Women will keep on doing that no matter what happens with politics.”
The context behind medical birth is CONTROL, this is why trying to change it from within never works.
Birth is out of control, wild and woolly. Midwifery has to be the same.