MEDIA RELEASE Monday, May 14, 2007

Plans to expand access to midwifery care in WA safe and timely

The Australian College of Midwives welcomes draft plans by the WA Government to expand women’s access to midwifery care in birth centres and in their own homes.

"There is robust evidence of the safety of midwifery-led care for women experiencing normal pregnancies, whether that care is provided in a hospital ward, a birth centre or a woman’s home" said Associate Professor Jennifer Fenwick, spokesperson for the Australian College of Midwives WA Branch.

Leading Cochrane researchers have conformed that women who experience one-to-one care from a known midwife have shorter labours, less need for pharmacological pain relief, and less need for caesarean sections. Their babies are also more likely to have high APGAR scores and less likely to need admission to a special care nursery.

"Too few women in WA currently have access to the choice of a known midwife to provide continuity of care through their pregnancy, labour, birth and early parenting", Associate Professor Fenwick said. "The Minister is quite right to point to experience overseas such as in the United Kingdom and New Zealand where women can choose to have the same midwife provide their care for planned birth at home, in a birth centre or a hospital and this service is widespread and publicly funded."

"Once again the AMA has resorted to sensationalism rather than engaging in a healthy debate about how best to provide women-centred quality maternity services. Claims that planned homebirth in the care of a midwife kills babies are nothing more than irresponsible scaremongering" Associate Professor Fenwick says.

"The fact is that there are numerous studies confirming the safety of planned homebirth for women with normal pregnancies. If a complication arises, the midwife transfers the woman and baby to hospital using national evidence based Consultation and Referral Guidelines."

"It’s curious that the AMA is always quick to criticise plans for women to access midwifery led services such as homebirth if that is the woman’s choice, while remaining silent about the twofold increase in infant mortality from caesarean section now performed on thousands of WA women each year without medical indication."

"The Community Midwifery Program here in WA has a very good track record, confirmed by independent reviews, of the safety of this type of care. We welcome the government’s proposal to expand women’s access to one-to-one midwifery care in collaboration with doctors as the needs of individual women or babies dictate.