August 2023 Edition

From our Managing Director,

Carla Finch

Huge number of submissions received for the NSW Birth Trauma Inquiry

Submissions to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Birth Trauma closed on Tuesday last week when the mothers of NSW almost broke the internet with the volume of their submissions. An extension had to be granted after the NSW Parliament's servers were struggling to keep up with the demand of receiving 4000 submissions.

Congratulations to everyone who managed to lodge a submission, but we know this is just the tip of the iceberg. For NSW Parliament to get a true picture of the scale of birth trauma experienced, they would have needed to provide wide scale support for each mother of babies and young children in the form of transcribing and childcare services, but this is an incredible beginning that we hope to see repeated across all states and territories.

The next step is that women and organisations will be invited to public hearings with media in attendance on 4 and 9 September in Sydney and on 7 September in Wollongong (TBC).

MCA Directors, all volunteers, worked feverishly to put together a comprehensive and lengthy submission, totalling 21 pages, plus anonymised NSW birth service reviews from Best Birth Finder. You can read it here.

Recent domestic violence tragedies - and support

 Rockhampton is reeling at the loss of local mother Tayla Cox and her 11 week old baby Murphy due to domestic violence. And only one week later another domestic violence incident claimed the life of Sydney mother of 4, Drew Douglas, including a 4 week old newborn.

There are no words to express the extent of the horror of these losses, but we extend our condolences to their families.

Shocking as this may sound, women are at increased risk of intimate partner violence during the perinatal period.

Please seek support from these vital services. They are here to help and it's never too early to call.

 1800 Respect National Helpline: 1800 737 732

Women's Crisis Line: 1800 811 811

Men's Referral Service: 1300 766 491

Mensline: 1300 789 978

Lifeline (24 hours): 131 114

Parliamentary Friends of Maternal Health finally established!

After sustained pressure by a coalition of maternity advocacy groups, we are excited to announce that a federal Parliamentary Friendship Group has been established for maternal health!

As the Parliament House website states: It is intended that this Group will provide a non-partisan forum for parliamentarians to meet and interact with government and non-government organisations and associations on matters relating to maternal health and care during pregnancy and transitioning to mothering and the issues faced by women receiving maternity care, and what the Parliament can do to address this.

Two consumer reps from MCA will be in attendance at the formal opening of the Friendship Group on 7 September, so we look forward to giving you an update on this event in our next newsletter.

Other consumer advocacy happenings around the country...

NSW Southern Highlands and ACT

As with many other NSW advocates, Catherine Bell put in a big effort to support local women in making their submissions. This support has proved invaluable to new mums who are keen to get to the keyboard but simply can't with their relentless schedules with newborns and toddlers to care for.

The Safer Baby Bundle rollouts continue in the ACT, but the most recent meetings have been postponed, so hopefully there'll be more to report on that front next month.

Catherine also had the opportunity to review the morphology ultrasound factsheet for Southern NSW Local Health District and thankfully her suggestions have been taken on board.

Rockhampton, Queensland

We are pleased to announce the appointment of our consumer representative in Rockhampton, Serah-Jane Morgan to the Consumer Advisory Group to the Rockhampton Hospital. The mothers and babies of this region will benefit from Serah-Jane's presence there and we hope there is the necessary understanding of Standard 2: Partnering with Consumers among her hospital colleagues. We'll keep you in the loop with this group's progress!

 Mackay, Queensland

Our consumer representative on the ground, Hayley Wilson, reports that:

• Dialogue between Friends of the Birth Centre, Mackay and Mackay Hospital and Health Service continues regarding the design of the new hospital.

• Hayley also met with the Chief Medical Officer regarding the review of Obstetrics and Gynaecology to follow up about obstetric violence issues being addressed. The HHS has provided a written guarantee that the Birth Centre will remain stand-alone.

• The second Better Births with Consent training is due to be scheduled

• Hayley has requested again that all women who came forward with their complaints regarding obstetric violence for the review of Mackay Hospital's O&G department be compensated.

Beware the Perineal Bundle!

A pre-post implementation study was published last week about the impacts of so-called Perineal Bundle, which was developed to reduce perineal trauma in non-medically assisted births conducted by midwives.

In this single site study, the researchers found that the implementation of the bundle was not associated with a reduced likelihood of several perineal trauma, but instead was associated with an increased chance of episiotomies in nulliparous women and 2nd degree tears in multiparous women.

Well done hardworking researchers!

With this clear evidence that the Perineal Bundle is causing additional harm with no decrease in severe perineal trauma, we call on the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare to de-endorse their clinical care standards as a matter of urgency and instruct the Executive Directors of Patient Safety and Quality in all states and territories to issue a directive to de-implement the use of this intervention,