New Midwife Laws: Say Goodbye to Legal Homebirths
Posted by Amber Robinson at 11:24 AM on June 25, 2009
Homebirths will become illegal in Australia within the year if new maternity reform legislation is passed through Parliament.
Under the new laws, introduced yesterday by Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon (pictured), independent midwives offering homebirth services to women may be struck of the medical register and fined f they attend a homebirth. The woman requesting the homebirth may also be fined.
Of course, the legislation has been touted as a wonderful thing for midwives and nurse practitioners, giving them a greater role in maternity care will improve services for women.
Sure – midwives and other nurses will now be able to issue medication without seeking a doctor’s signoff and provide tests and referrals previously only able to administered by a doctor. From a procedural point of view, this is great.
But midwives will only have access to these new conditions if they attend women birthing in hospital under the thumbs of medical “collaboration” which is yet to be defined and indicates that OB GYNs will still be in charge.
An independent midwife may not be able to provide (in hospital) services for women who have “risk factors” such as previous C section or postpartum haemorrhage, previous recurrent miscarriage, more than two terminations of pregnancy, postnatal depression, obesity, pregnancy beyond 41 weeks or postpartum conditions such as breastfeeding difficulties (yes, really).
The fact is, that many parents really want to birth their child at home -a perfectly safe option which is legal in many other countries. They’ll still have their homebirths, but as Justine Caines, mother of seven and secretary of Homebirth Australia warns, deaths will increase.
“Women will continue to homebirth, but will now do so without the assistance of a qualified professional.” said Ms Caines. “The result will be an increase in deaths for mothers and babies, this is certain. It is absolutely impossible to understand the government’s position on this, other than to say that they have bowed to political pressure from medical lobby groups.”
Homebirth Australia is organising a rally against the legislation to be held at 11.30am, 7 September 2009 outside Parliament House in Canberra.
Next on the list-enforcing new laws in which women can be abducted from their homes by OB orders by 41 weeks for forced interventions in the name of “safety”. Women who try to have an unattended home birth will be facing police at their doors. Hotel owners will have to call authorities and report the heavily pregnant women who try to hide out in their rooms. Private citizens will be jailed and fined for allowing women sanctuary in their homes during birth. Why is the labor government being led around by the nose by those who stand to benefit most from turning mothers and fathers into criminals for protecting their bodies and babies from unnecessary routine harm for profit?
It seems a huge step backwards for this country. Women have the right to give birth where they choose, including at home, and they have the right to skilled and competent midwifery care. There is little to be gained by these changes which will see women having to freebirth if they decide against hospital birth.
indeed this is a huge step backwards for women’s rights! Childbirth has never been and should never be treated like an illness. It has been proven that medical interventions endanger the birth rather than the opposite. Look up Laura Shanley + unassisted childbirth and you’ll soon learn that women weren’t even meant to experience pain during a natural birth. Childbirth is a SEXUAL act and therefore it is criminal to force a woman into a hospital or even force her to have a “professional” with her during a homebirth when she doesn’t want to, because it equals RAPE and on top of that it endangers herself and her baby far more than it would ever protect them.