WEL is developing a new Reproductive Health Platform for the 2025 election which will be informed by an explosive report on Birth Trauma handed down on 29 May by the NSW Legislative Council’s Select Committee on Birth Trauma.
As the first of its kind, the Inquiry has sparked interest around Australia and the world.
The Committee held six hearings, received 4,000 submissions, mostly from mothers with lived experience of birth trauma, and heard in-person testimony from dozens of women, as well as experts, medical and health care professionals and advocacy groups.
The NSW inquiry was announced in June 2023, following new data that showed up to one in three Australian women were experiencing traumatic births. The Australian Birth Experience Study (BESt) from Western Sydney University, published in December 2022, revealed that 28% of women experienced birth trauma and more than one-in-ten experienced some form of obstetric violence.
The first of the report's 43 recommendations is that the NSW Government fully implement Connecting, listening and responding: A Blueprint for Actions – Maternity Care in NSW as soon as practicable and ensure ongoing evaluation of their effectiveness. The Blueprint was issued by the NSW Department of Health in 2022.
Other recommendations include:
- Ensuring all women have access to continuity of care with a known provider
- Embedding the birthing mother’s informed consent in all medical interventions during birth.
- Improvements to psychological support post-partum
- Training on trauma-informed practice for all maternity health practitioners
- Separate rooms for women experiencing miscarriage and stillbirth in public hospitals
- Investment in boosting the midwife and GP obstetrician workforce.
- Expanding birthing-on-country programs for Indigenous mothers.
- That the NSW Government advocate to the Federal Government for Medicare rebates for GP delivered pre and postpartum care
The UN recognises obstetric violence as gendered violence, but the Inquiry report avoided the terminology, with expert medical organisations possibly anxious to guard against risk of litigation.
The final report did not call for universal access to midwifery group practice (MGP), a midwifery-led model of continuous care. WEL supports the principle of a midwifery - led model for Continuity of Care and will seek advice on building the model into our health platform for our 2024/5 campaign.
WEL notes the report did recognise MGP as a "gold standard" of maternity care and recommended it be expanded.
The NSW Government has three months to respond to the Report. We will be watching with interest, as the 2024/5 NSW Budget includes no explicit provision implementing measures in Maternity Care in NSW, with the commendable exception of an expansion of Aboriginal controlled Birthing in Country services in the Illawarra.
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