Reducing midwives risk of work-related injury
Search for an image of a “midwife,” and you will see the internationally identified photo of our profession – a smiling midwife with their head turned, bent over a pregnant belly listening to a foetal heart through a pinard stethoscope. This heart-warming posture is demonstrative of the strange positions that midwives adopt during their regular […]
How Midwifery Group Practice is improving outcomes for women and babies
Continuity of midwifery care is associated with better outcomes for mothers and babies, yet, it’s not available to everyone. While support for these models is growing in Australia, more needs to be done, writes Robert Fedele. In 2020, Castlemaine Health, a rural health service in central Victoria, resolved to suspend its maternity service and commission […]
ACM calls for greater community-based maternity care and access to homebirths amid COVID-19
The Australian College of Midwives (ACM) is calling on the federal government to explore innovative ways to increase community-based maternity services amid the COVID-19 pandemic, such as setting up clinics in empty schools and community halls and expanding access to home birthing, in a bid to reduce pregnant women potentially being exposed to the virus […]
Accessibility – a pivotal factor in maternal and neonatal outcomes
Australia is one of the safest countries in the world in which to give birth or to be born. Despite this, women in rural areas continue to experience higher rates of maternal mortality (Kildea et al. 2008) and fetal and neonatal deaths (AIHW 2005). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are three times as likely […]