Practice Guidelines National Midwifery Guidelines for Consultation & Referral

Midwives, as primary carers, need to make evidenced based decisions regarding when an individual woman in their care may need medical attention during pregnancy, labour, birth or the post-natal period. These guidelines have been developed to provide midwives with support in doing this. It is the intention that the guidelines be used to facilitate consultation and integration of care between midwives and doctors, giving confidence to providers, women and their families.

The College has developed these Consultation and Referral Guidelines in conjunction with a multi-disciplinary expert panel and with public consultation.  The Guidelines were first published in 2004 and this second edition was published in 2008.

Download the Guidlines here (Large file, 4mb)

To order your hard copy of the Consultation and Referral Guidelines for $22 (GST Inc) please download the order form and send it back to the college.

Download order form here

Guidelines for the management of napkin dermititis in Australia and New Zealand

These guidelines were developed by the Nappy Rash Prevention Council, and are a useful contribution to the available resources on the management of napkin dermatitis. The guidelines were reviewed and endorsed by the ACM in September 2006.

Download the guidelines here

Caesarean section - National Institute for Clinical Excellence

These evidence based guidelines have been developed to help ensure consistency of quality of care
experienced by women having CS. It provides evidence based information for health care
professionals and women about:

• the risks and benefits of CS
• certain specific indications for CS
• effective management strategies which avoid CS
• anaesthetic and surgical aspects of care
• interventions to reduce morbidity from CS and
• aspects of organisation and environment which affect CS rates.

To see full guidelines please click here

These nationally agreed clinical guidelines are intended to support a range of health care workers who care for pregnant women with drug and alcohol use issues, and their infants and families. The guidelines are based on the best currently available evidence, developed through a rigorous process in which international and Australian research literature was reviewed by experts and consensus achieved.

Download guidelines here

National Consensus Framework for Rural Maternity Services

This Framework has been developed to fill a growing need to guide policy and planning for sustainable rural maternity services across Australia. The need for such a Framework is demonstrated by community and professional concern about the ongoing closure of rural birthing services. However, until now, there was no set of agreed principles that communities, service providers, decision makers and funders could use to work together to ensure safe, evidence based maternity care for the third of Australian mothers who live outside major cities.

To download the framework please click here

Management of Early Pregnancy Loss Clinical Guidelines

This guideline provides information related to the diagnosis and clinical management of women with early pregnancy loss, defined as a loss within the first 12 completed weeks of pregnancy. It mainly addresses the management of spontaneous miscarriage, but is also relevant to women affected by ectopic pregnancy and gestational trophoblastic disease, although specific guidelines for these conditions should be examined separately.2,3,4 This Guideline is intended to be primarily used by clinicians working in women’s health settings; it should also be valuable to anyone providing health care to women experiencing early pregnancy problems.

To download the guidelines please click here