When the death of a newborn occurs it is a tragedy. However when it happens under the care of a doctor, it’s often treated as inevitable. Whereas, when a midwife is in charge, especially in a home birth, people are quick to cast blame and say the tragedy was preventable.

The reality is that a planned home birth with a midwife is a safe option for low-risk pregnancies and can limit unnecessary medical interventions.

Those employed by a hospital will have their cases reviewed by peers against the reasonable practitioner standard and if found to be reasonable, they will not be referred to the relevant board. There is no openness in this review.

Those employed as independent practitioner are referred to the relevant health professional board, where the concept of the common law presumption of innocence is negated due to the imposition of pre-determination conditions on registrations, while waiting for the case to be investigated by the relevant board. Their practice is curtailed until investigations have been completed, leaving them without income and unable to fulfil their duty of care that they have to their clients and their families.

When an independent midwife is involved the public scrutiny of the investigation results in trial by media.