The evidence is in, the policies exist yet 92% of Australian women do not have the best form of maternity care - continuity of woman-centred care near where they live.

Instead they must make do with fragmented care with a string of unknown clinicians, even though continuity of care has been proven to give the best outcomes to mothers and babies. The benefits are many, but the biggest one is that your baby is more likely to survive pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period if you have continuity of woman-centred care.

Since 2010 Australian has had a national plan to improve maternity services, but delivery of our health services is so inefficient it has been largely ignored all that time.

The good news is that national Standard 2: Partnering with Consumers requires all health services to partner with women and families in designing and delivering health services.

Yay! We have a role to play and a job to do. Find out about this story peppered with passionate characters, and what you can do in this podcast.

With thanks to interviewees:
Professor Caroline Homer, President of the Australian College of Midwives
Bruce Teakle, maternity services consumer advocate
Leah Hardiman, President, Maternity Choices Australia
Sheryl Sidery, independent midwife
Tiff, continuity of care mother

Other acknowledgements:
* My son saying "Daddy caught the baby!" at his sister's birth in 2008. Heart-felt thanks from our family to midwife Jacqui Wood who held our hands along the journey.
* Homebirth rally sound effects from "Melbourne Homebirth Rally 4th August 2009"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhfSJlWbMaU
* "I love being a midwife" sung by midwifery students at BRAC University, Bangladesh at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F319Z8ujBDU

References:
* http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/maternityservicesplan
* www.maternitychoices.org.au
* And the new draft framework is just out this week! Check it out and have your say here:
https://www.getinvolved.qld.gov.au/gi/consultation/3805/view.html
You can also contact us or Maternity Choices Australia to help understand it!! :)
* Standard 2: Partnering with Consumers
https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Standard2_Oct_2012_WEB.pdf
* Barnett, B "The Personal is Political..." http://www.maternitychoices.org.au/national-maternity-services-plan.html
* 30% of women tokophobic: (http://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2393-14-275)
* Aust Senate-maternity service delivery not sustainable: Aust Senate, 1999 Rocking the Cradle: Federal Senate Inquiry into Childbirth Procedures. AGPS, Canberra
* 1 in 7 women with PNDA: www.panda.org.au
* 41% of maternity units closed 1994-2011: Kildea, S, et al, "Babies born before arrival to hospital and maternity unit closures in Queensland and Australia" accessed from http://www.womenandbirth.org/article/S1871-5192(15)00039-6/fulltext
* Est. of 8% of women receiving cont. of care: Dawson K, et al. Implementing caseload midwifery: Exploring the views of maternity managers in Australia – A national cross-sectional survey. Women Birth (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2015.10.010
* Cochrane review "Midwife-led continuity models of care compared with other models of care for women during pregnancy, birth and early parenting" http://www.cochrane.org/CD004667/PREG_midwife-led-continuity-models-care-compared-other-models-care-women-during-pregnancy-birth-and-early

Copyright 2017 PBB Media, Sally Cusack
www.pbbmedia.org

Producer and presenter: Sally Cusack