MCA has big plans for 2024! |
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From our Managing Director, Carla Finch: I hope you have all enjoyed the summer holidays and managed to fit in plenty of adventures - and time to relax in between. Make sure you join us on Friday 17 May for our second public meeting of the year I'll be sharing Part 2 of my homebirth after caesarean story. What a transformative and powerful experience that was for me and my family. I'll be sharing my key lessons from the experience, how I prepared and what helped me achieve this goal. If you missed Part 1 where I told the story of labour and birth, you can catch it here. We'll also be launching our new website and look forward to taking you on a brief tour of it! And a quick reminder about our important side project, Best Birth Finder. This vital free service helps women find reviews of birth services near them, as well as helping them create and send their feedback to the birth services they used. If you haven't done so already, make sure you enter your birth service reviews here. It doesn't matter how long ago you gave birth. If you birthed in Australia, Best Birth Finder will accept it. See you on 17 May! |
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Our second quarterly public meeting for 2024 |
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Join us for Part 2 of Carla's HBAC story At our first quarterly meeting of the year (on 1 March), our Managing Director, Carla Finch, will be sharing part 2 of her home birth after caesarean (HBAC) story from late 2023. In this session, she'll be taking us through how she prepared, her key lessons from the experience and what she'd recommend to other women on the HBAC journey. In part 1 of Carla's story, which she shared back in December, she told the whole story of the labour and birth. If you missed it, you can catch it here. Thank you Carla for sharing these special, intimate pictures with us, and for sharing your story! |
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MCA to unveil new website in May! |
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Stay tuned for our new website, which we will be unveiling in May! We hope you'll love our improved layout and updated design as much as we do. In the meantime, you'll still find our fantastic resources and you can become a supporter at www.maternitychoices.org.au. |
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MCA Participates in Midwifery Workforce Planning Project In March, Maternity Choices Australia representatives Azure and Catherine attended the Australian Midwifery Workforce Symposium. This was a very insightful opportunity, and we were heard and contributed to the future planning for the midwifery workforce. The symposium is part of a longer term strategic planning project, which is including the consumer and lived experience voices. We were able to contribute to the importance of sex based language, and ensuring relationship based care across all risk levels. The symposium was an opportunity to connect with key players, including Julie Swain - Deputy Director Nursing & Midwifery | Womens and Newborn Health, Westmead. She went on to speak in the most recent hearing for the NSW Birth Trauma Inquiry, and she took the time to seek our insights before speaking. |
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New article on What Women Want Earlier this month Dr Kirsten Small and other members of the Australian Midwifery Workforce Project and Sally Cusack, MCA Secretary published What Women Want from their Maternity Care in the AMA's medical journal Insight'. The full article can be read here. |
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Queensland Health reforms for birthing and women and girls MCA's Advocacy Manager, Azure Rigney attended the Queensland Health Maternity Neonatal Networking Forum recently where the Queensland Birth Strategy and the Queensland Women and Girls' Health Strategy were announced. MCA applauds some of the Women and Girls' Health Strategy's system reform goals, in particular the funding for Maternity Consumer Network's informed consent training for hospital staff. However, we believe the Women and Girls' Strategy needed to include the brilliant Qld Birth Strategy to ensure critical state wide reforms were fully funded and implemented; of maternity models of care, place of birth, evidence based guidelines, public reporting and other system changes such as bundled funding to enable consent and a positive duty to the Qld human rights law. We find maternity related funding for the strategy negatively disproportionate to other areas of women’s healthcare per service user group. Despite much evidence submitted from a range of stakeholders, the strategy's goals are couched in terms of "gender" inequality to the exclusion of the sexed based inequalities due to ‘ministers intent’ rather than actual community consultation. Such inequalities that can be faced by women and girls in areas like maternity care are experienced due to their female sexed bodies, bodies that can't be escaped from, rather than any concepts of gender. Women without a gender identity weren't able to respond beyond question 5 in the draft consultation survey, resulting in further perspectives not being heard. Push for Medicare rebates for Endorsed Midwives MCA is hopeful that the federal government will be including new rebates for endorsed midwives in the May budget, opening up more opportunities for women seeking to hire private midwives. Endorsed midwives receive additional training to their midwifery degrees that enables them to prescribe certain medications and to admit women to hospital and provide care under their own authority. They can also make referrals to obstetricians and paediatricians. This reform would also ensure homebirth has a Medicare rebate number so women don’t feel a funding system is coercing them into an unwarranted and unwanted hospital birth in order to access a $1000 (approx.) rebate for birth. We encourage everyone to write to their local MPs, especially if they are from the Labor party, and ask that they push for the inclusion of rebates for midwives in the upcoming budget. |
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European efforts against obstetric violence |
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Born at Home Film: Have you seen it yet? |
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As proud supporters of this film, we have been thrilled to see it screen in packed theatres across the country. And it has also been screening in New Zealand, the UK, Ireland and Canada. MCA congratulates Eleanor and Amanda for their incredible effort in spreading the positive message of the choice of home birth to the world. Check for screenings in your area here. |
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Best Birth Finder is waiting for your birth review! |
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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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