Making an informed decision during maternity care? Decisions are crucial to our relationships with the experts we rely on for maternity care. As consumers of maternity care we need to be enabled, informed and afforded agency in any decision to be made by us regarding our maternity care. We need to be able to tell
Dignity in Maternity Care is Respectful Care Dignity is a touchstone concept in human rights, ethics, politics, philosophy and Respectful Maternity Care. Human dignity is inalienable right, based on the inherent human worth of a person. Hence, pregnant women should never be treated as a means to the ends of others. Dignity is the opposite
Women are the solution – not the problem We call on governments and maternity care providers to refocus the maternity care discussion. Women are often made out to be the problem in maternity care. This causes suffering both physically and mentally for women. A Problem is something we do understand and thus we do not
To have the birth you want the two big decisions that have to be made are: Where you are going to give birth? and Who is going to provide your maternity care? The biggest impact on your birth outcomes will be where you decide to birth and who will provide your maternity care. Whether you
Live Panel Discussion – Birth Trauma Just wanted to share a link to the recent Facebook that SMFA in collaboration with Maternity Choices, Maternity Consumer Network, Pregnancy Birth and Beyond Media and others hosted – if you hold down control and click on the link or copy and paste this link to the URL it
Core practices for quality antenatal care The core practices in pregnancy care are based directly on the content of the Pregnancy Care Guidelines and include key information such as recommendations, information on tests and practice summaries. While intended for health professionals, they are very useful for pregnant women. They can be found at: https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/core-practices-in-pregnancy-care
Inquiry into Maternity Services in the ACT 2020 REPORT ON INQUIRY INTO MATERNITY SERVICES IN THE ACT Standing Committee On Health, Ageing And Community Services June 2020 The opening statement to the report is: I think we have tripped into a space where we deliver services that meet the needs of the services rather than
Political decisions can and do impact on economic & social inequities faced by women, through policies that shape maternity care. Knowing what we now know, to continue with the current status quo is to provide less than optimal maternity care to the childbearing women of Australia. The Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) Review Taskforce is undertaking
Please do not let women down. While we welcome Labor’s plan to support women’s reproductive rights, we are distressed that maternity is excluded from the statement, just as maternity was excluded from Setting the Agenda Labor’s national plan for action on gender equality. To write a plan to support women’s reproductive rights and not to
Cultural Safety – Respect and Dignity We are often asked why cultural safety is an important part of respectful maternity care. Cultural safety incorporates physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual well-being. A commonly used definition of cultural safety is that of Williams (1999) who defined cultural safety as: an environment that is spiritually, socially and emotionally
