South Coast Midwifery Australia

25/10/2024

Don't forget to follow us on our new Facebook & Instagram 👇

21/07/2024

01/07/2024

South Coast Midwifery followers...
We are thrilled to announce 🥁
The new 'Embrace Midwifery Services' has finally arrived!

Cassie along with Nikita and Jo have launched a new venture, combining 40 years of midwifery experience. We can't wait to tell you all about it 📣

Keep your eyes on our socials 👀
Follow us on Instagram & Embrace Midwifery Services on Facebook 🙌

29/06/2024

A wonderful Australian College of Midwives (ACM) Conference in Adelaide.

The focus this year was on continuity of midwifery care 💜

28/06/2024

What did you ‘almost’ name your little one?

28/06/2024

🤍

28/06/2024

What did you 'almost' name your little one?

27/06/2024

Some great advice around promoting and protecting birth physiology…

REPOST:
The recipe for protecting birth physiology is not complex in my opinion…

I was speaking with yesterday about the ‘ingredients’ needed to protect optimal birth physiology and she said:
1. Private
2. Safe
3. Unobserved
… and I’ve added my 3 ‘rules’ for conducting myself (or yourself) within a woman’s birth space (and only if you’ve been invited in… if you haven’t been invited, then you have violated the first 3 rules so, back out of the birth space in a low slow and quiet manner)

4. Low: when in a woman’s birth space, make every attempt to not hover over the top or above her. Get down to her eye level or below. It helps to remind you and hopefully her that she has the power in the space and allows for eye contact and respectful engagement.

5. Slow: avoid rushing around the birth space. Keep the movement of your body slow and purposeful. Unnecessary shuffling and racing about the birth space is distracting to the woman.

6. Quiet: keep your voice to low tones, quiet and unobtrusive so as not to break the birth space with noise. Avoid adding any noise to the space that is not absolutely needed. Before speaking, ask yourself, ‘would my words right now benefit the woman’ if not, you don’t need to say them.

The hormones of labour are shy and need privacy to work well. So if you want to give your body the best chance of a physiological birth, protect your privacy, only invite people and things into your space that makes you feel safer and ensure that your chosen care providers know how to respect the birth space by being unobtrusive, low, slow and quiet
This should continue through to placental birth and the early HOURS after the baby is born.

27/06/2024

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚?

Marginal cord insertion or battledore placenta is an atypical type of umbilical cord attachment during pregnancy. Instead of inserting in the centre of the placenta, the umbilical cord attaches at the margins. The fetus may develop more slowly with this kind of insertion. However, this baby was within a healthy weight range.

A physiological birth of the placenta is beneficial as there is no tension placed on the cord during the delivery.

26/06/2024

✨

25/06/2024

💓

25/06/2024

An en caul birth is also called a 'veiled birth'
This is a rare occurrence of beauty and only happens in less than 1 in 80,000 births (approximately)

🍀 Have you supported an en caul birth? This is when a baby is born completely inside their amniotic sac.

🍀 Throughout history, en caul births tended to be thought of as lucky! In fact in many parts of Europe, the ‘caul’ itself was often highly sought after as it was believed they bestowed luck and protection to those who carried one.

Amazing 📸: via 🤩

24/06/2024

Ever wondered what breast milk tastes like? 🤔

Find out what breast milk tastes like, and how it compares to cow's milk and formula.

24/06/2024

A great read, thanks Dr Rachel Reed for your insight into Gestational Diabetes...

Full blog post: https://midwifethinking.com/2018/03/20/gestational-diabetes-beyond-the-label/

18/06/2024

🤔

18/06/2024

🦘🦘🦘🦘

14/06/2024

𝐊𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧

The Federal Government recently announced plans to offer insurance for "low risk" homebirths. Right now, there is no insurance available for midwives during homebirths. Since 2010, there has been an exemption allowing midwives to assist with homebirths without insurance for the actual birth. This means midwives can help most women/parents with homebirths, but they aren't covered by insurance when they do.

These changes, due to come into effect on the 1st of July 2025, could mean that it becomes illegal for PPMs to attend homebirths for women/parents outside of what the government deems "low risk".

This could risk out up to 80% of women who currently seek a homebirth with a midwife.

Some of the factors that could categorise a woman/parent as "high risk" include:
- previous caesarean section
- previous 3rd or 4th degree tear
- previous postpartum haemorrhage
- twin pregnancy
- breech presentation
- BMI of more than 35
- maternal age of 40+ years
- IVF pregnancy
- anxiety and/or depression
- anaemia
- urinary incontinence
- 42+ weeks gestation
- macrosomia (estimated baby weight >4000g or 90th centile)
- autoimmune disease
- Type 1 or 2 diabetes
- small or large baby for gestational age
- more than 3 abortions
- more than 5 previous births
- financial issues
- family/domestic violence

There is a lot we don't yet know, but Government consultations with key stakeholders will begin soon, and we need your help so that we can represent the needs of our community during this process. We believe all women deserve the right to choose where they give birth.

We know our homebirth community is most powerful when we come together, so please share this survey with anyone you know who has had a homebirth, is planning a homebirth or is a homebirth midwife.

Fill in the survey here >
https://tinyurl.com/4udd585r

Homebirth Australia