MCA wishes you and your family the very best for Christmas and the holiday season |
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From our Managing Director, Carla Finch: This year has whizzed by and here we are with only days left of 2023! We have seen lots of change this year at MCA with becoming registered as a company limited by guarantee and applying for deductible gift recipient status, which will help us bring in much needed funding to breathe life into our dreams of improving birth in Australia. We also launched Best Birth Finder, our online tool for helping women find reviews of birth services near them, as well as helping them create and send their feedback to the birth services they used. While we need government buy-in and funds to help bring about change of birthing services in Australia, our feedback needs to be visible. This is an essential piece for bringing about change. So, if you haven't done so already, make sure you enter your birth service reviews here. None of this stopped us from our core work of advocacy around the country, including appearing at the NSW Birth Trauma Inquiry as well as responding to scores of enquiries from women around the country seeking support. We are also working on an upgrading website, which we will unveil in early 2024. And finally, we closed out the year with our final meeting last month where I shared my recent HBAC story. What a transformative and powerful experience that was for me and my family. If you missed it, you can catch it here. Best wishes to you and your families and see you in 2024! |
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Finally, Publicly Funded Homebirth for Queensland! |
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Initial funding of $1.2 million will see this important birth choice being made available from Sunshine Coast University Hospital (SCUH) from mid 2024. This brings Queensland in line with all other Australian states and territories for offering publicly funded homebirth, other than Tasmania. We expect after the program has run at SCUH for 6 months, and evaluation reports have started, other sites around Queensland will begin their programs. |
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Queensland Health Announces Best Midwifery Ratios in Australia Ratios for mothers and babies to midwives in Queensland postpartum wards will be brought down to 1 in 6, making this ratio of dyads to midwives the lowest in Australia. Also, for the first time in Australia, babies roomed in with their mothers will be counted as "patients". MCA welcomes this change and hopes to similar ratios introduced in other states and territories. |
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MCA Acknowledges Support of Organisations in Advocacy MCA commends the support of the Australian College of Midwives and the Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union, as well as the Queensland Office of the Nursing and Midwifery Officer for their consumer led approach, which has been instrumental finally seeing Queensland's Normal Birth Strategy being funded and agreements should be implemented it in full mid 2024. |
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Birth Trauma Inquiry drawing to a close |
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Another hearing of the NSW Birth Trauma Inquiry took place in Wagga on 12 December. The Committee heard from women who had birthed at Wagga Hospital, some of them sharing shocking stories of mistreatment and poor care. The Committee is due to report its findings on 1 February. |
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MCA Hosts the 3rd International Roundtable of Human Rights in Childbirth Organisations MCA's Advocacy Manager, Azure Rigney, chaired the third international roundtable of childbirth advocacy organisations on 8 December. We were excited to have maternity advocates from around the world tuning in, such as from Sweden, Belgium, UK, Cyprus, Norway and Italy. They heard a presentation by Kaleen Gribble, PhD, from Western Sydney University entitled CEDAW and Sexed Based Language, based on her co-authored paper The Importance of Sexed Language. MCA will be making a joint submission to CEDAW with members of the Roundtable in 2024 and would like to see the importance of sexed based language as a part of the submission. |
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Born at Home Film: Coming to a town near you in 2024! |
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Make sure you catch this exciting new documentary by two homebirth mums! It will premiere in south east Queensland in January 2024, but there'll also be a screening in Byron Bay on 15 February. Other screenings to be announced soon. |
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Homebirth Australia Conference 2024: Call for Abstracts |
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After the excitement of publicly funded homebirth being introduced at the Sunshine Coast, this region was the only sensible choice for next year's HBA conference. The call for abstracts closes on 16 February 2024, so get your thinking caps on! |
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Have you discovered Best Birth Finder yet? |
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Have you ever thought how useful it would be to read reviews of your local birth service? Or you thought about sending your feedback to your birth service but have not been able to get around to it? After having a baby, there's barely time to look after yourself, let alone work out how to send feedback to your birth service. This is where Best Birth Finder (BBF) can help you. BBF is a free space for you to: Your reviews provide invaluable information for women coming up behind you who are looking for their best birth! Check out Best Birth Finder today and make your experience count! |
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