Find out what matters to Maternity Health Consumers when it comes to Maternity Care
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Australian Maternity Healthcare is considered one of the best in the world when taking into account maternal mortality rates, yet what is clearly emerging through research, news and stories from communities across the country is that despite relatively low mortality rates for mothers and babies, we have very high rates of trauma and associated morbidity including avoidable stillbirth, affecting mothers and babies and consequently their family units and the wider community. At Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond, we believe that the early years, specifically the perinatal period and in fact childbirth itself are pivotal in family and community overall wellbeing.
There are many areas in which maternity healthcare can be improved, fragmentation being one of these. One of the fundamental ways we can improve outcomes for all involved, including our healthcare force, is by providing quality continuity of care throughout the perinatal continuum. At PBBM we work tirelessly to cross pollinate information between all the stakeholders in this area but most importantly, we speak daily to families about their lived experiences. |
Chronicle
We aim to advocate and campaign for Diversity, Inclusivity, Excellence and Accuracy in Maternity Healthcare in Australia.
We live and work in Northern NSW, Australia and have been maternity consumer advocates and representatives for women and families in our area for over 10 years. Over the years, collectively, we have spoken to thousands of women and their family members about the various aspects of maternity care and beyond and have run, been part of and supported various campaigns. Through our work we have also maintained close connections with various stakeholders in maternity care and regularly attend conferences, seminars and trainings to support our ongoing understanding of maternity healthcare systems in this country and abroad.
When viewing our content please keep in mind that ALL our work is 100% Volunteer-Run and Not-for-Profit and, most of our work is a WIP - Work in Progress. We may not always have a final outcome or the fancy audiovisual interface to package the info we disseminate - but the work has been done. We speak to thousands of consumers, healthcare providers, healthcare practitioners and experts across Australia and around the world in order to get a diverse frame of reference for the work that we do.
We live and work in Northern NSW, Australia and have been maternity consumer advocates and representatives for women and families in our area for over 10 years. Over the years, collectively, we have spoken to thousands of women and their family members about the various aspects of maternity care and beyond and have run, been part of and supported various campaigns. Through our work we have also maintained close connections with various stakeholders in maternity care and regularly attend conferences, seminars and trainings to support our ongoing understanding of maternity healthcare systems in this country and abroad.
When viewing our content please keep in mind that ALL our work is 100% Volunteer-Run and Not-for-Profit and, most of our work is a WIP - Work in Progress. We may not always have a final outcome or the fancy audiovisual interface to package the info we disseminate - but the work has been done. We speak to thousands of consumers, healthcare providers, healthcare practitioners and experts across Australia and around the world in order to get a diverse frame of reference for the work that we do.
“Don’t tolerate me as different. Accept me as part of the spectrum of normalcy.”- Ann Northrup
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NATIONAL CAMPAIGN
ADD YOUR VOICE - Consumers are adamant about access to MLCoC
We are currently running a critical campaign to ensure maternity health consumer voices are heard loud and clear. Consumers want access to Quality, Midwifery-Led Continuity of Care/r nearby where they live.
There are several ways you can take action straight away to support this campaign and add your voice. Find out more here!
PBB or Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond Media is a community and volunteer run not for profit journalism and media project of Mullum S.E.E.D. The founders of PBB Media have been maternity consumer advocates for women and families in the Northern Rivers region of NSW for over 10 years. Over the years we have spoken to thousands of maternity consumers about their maternity care and the kind of care they would like to receive.
The stories we have heard are as diverse as the people we have met! We speak to people in their homes, we hear from them while they are at work on their lunch break, we talk at the school drop off, at the supermarkets and at playgrounds. To help spread the word and understand our community better, we organise film screenings, info nights, special lectures connecting consumers with clinicians, host community events and run a weekly live-to-air radio program and a podcast discussing the most important to issues families face in their daily lives. We also have a very strong focus on the perinatal period, because, we know from all of these stories we have heard, just how influential this period of a family’s life can be. All the work we do is 100% Volunteer and not-for-profit!
Alongside some of Australia’s peek maternity consumer representative bodies as well as countless independent reps and many other individual supporters of this cause, PBB Media is at the height of a vital campaign to ensure families retain their rights to access a model of care which is RIGHT NOW IN JEOPARDY - quality Midwifery-Led Continuity of Care, nearby where they live.
Find out how you can ADD YOUR VOICE to this campaign and speak up to ensure your community has access to this vital service.
There are several ways you can take action straight away to support this campaign and add your voice. Find out more here!
PBB or Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond Media is a community and volunteer run not for profit journalism and media project of Mullum S.E.E.D. The founders of PBB Media have been maternity consumer advocates for women and families in the Northern Rivers region of NSW for over 10 years. Over the years we have spoken to thousands of maternity consumers about their maternity care and the kind of care they would like to receive.
The stories we have heard are as diverse as the people we have met! We speak to people in their homes, we hear from them while they are at work on their lunch break, we talk at the school drop off, at the supermarkets and at playgrounds. To help spread the word and understand our community better, we organise film screenings, info nights, special lectures connecting consumers with clinicians, host community events and run a weekly live-to-air radio program and a podcast discussing the most important to issues families face in their daily lives. We also have a very strong focus on the perinatal period, because, we know from all of these stories we have heard, just how influential this period of a family’s life can be. All the work we do is 100% Volunteer and not-for-profit!
Alongside some of Australia’s peek maternity consumer representative bodies as well as countless independent reps and many other individual supporters of this cause, PBB Media is at the height of a vital campaign to ensure families retain their rights to access a model of care which is RIGHT NOW IN JEOPARDY - quality Midwifery-Led Continuity of Care, nearby where they live.
Find out how you can ADD YOUR VOICE to this campaign and speak up to ensure your community has access to this vital service.
NATIONAL PROJECT
The National Strategic Approach to Maternity Services
PROJECT PARTICIPANTS - Annalee Atia and Sally Cusack
PROJECT DATE - Ongoing, commencing early 2018.
PROJECT DETAILS - Ensure consumers voices are being heard during the planning, development and implementation of Australia's new National Strategic Approach to Maternity Services.
PROJECT TARGET - Ensure the latest quality evidence is included, ensure a diverse range of consumer voices are heard, ensure Midwifery Led Continuity of Care models are offered to all Australian women.
PROJECT ELEMENTS - We achieve our targets through various platforms - Ongoing Consumer Engagement, Journalism, Events, Community Engagement, Attending the National Strategic Approach to Maternity Services (NSAMS) consultations in person and via online communications, various campaigns.
PROJECT DATE - Ongoing, commencing early 2018.
PROJECT DETAILS - Ensure consumers voices are being heard during the planning, development and implementation of Australia's new National Strategic Approach to Maternity Services.
PROJECT TARGET - Ensure the latest quality evidence is included, ensure a diverse range of consumer voices are heard, ensure Midwifery Led Continuity of Care models are offered to all Australian women.
PROJECT ELEMENTS - We achieve our targets through various platforms - Ongoing Consumer Engagement, Journalism, Events, Community Engagement, Attending the National Strategic Approach to Maternity Services (NSAMS) consultations in person and via online communications, various campaigns.
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The Vital role of Consumers in planning Maternity Healthcare Services in Australia
Join Sally Cusack and Annalee Atia as they delve into the National Strategic Approach to Maternity Services (they attended the May 2018 consultation session in Tweed Heads), and the vital role consumers play in shaping our healthcare system, the current government review on Maternity Healthcare Services and find out how you can join the conversation!
Image: Annalee Atia (left) & Sally Cusack in the studio at the 99.9 BayFM Radio station, May 2018
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“My dream is that every woman, everywhere, will know the joy of a truly safe, comfortable, and satisfying birthing for herself and her baby.”- Marie Mongan
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NATIONAL PROJECT
Improving Maternity Services across Australia through Consumer Engagement.
Did you know that your voice is needed to make change within the system? Australian healthcare laws are configured as such that they require consumer (you) involvement from planning to actualisation of all healthcare services.Have your say in improving birth in Australia. Only 8% have access to continuity of woman-centred care, the form of care that means your baby is more likely to survive pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period.
The power is in fact in our hands to make a change. FULL EPISODE |
And elsewhere in the world, your local maternity services need your input to serve local women in the safest way possible. Contact us to find out how to engage with your local maternity service.
The most important thing to remember about the natural cascade of hormones during childbirth is that the mother needs to feel: Private, Safe & Unobserved- Dr Sarah Buckley
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STATE LEVEL INQUIRY
NSW Maternity Care Survey: Samantha Wibberley has her say
PROJECT PARTICIPANTS - Sally Cusack
PROJECT DATE - November 2018
PROJECT DETAILS - The omission of independent midwives from Question 8 of the "Maternity Care in NSW - What's important to you?" survey has upset many - and great to see the survey has been corrected - but mother of three and consumer advocate from Tamworth NSW has other reasons to be disappointed in this "tokenistic" survey that she doesn't believe will provide the information NSW Health needs.
PROJECT DATE - November 2018
PROJECT DETAILS - The omission of independent midwives from Question 8 of the "Maternity Care in NSW - What's important to you?" survey has upset many - and great to see the survey has been corrected - but mother of three and consumer advocate from Tamworth NSW has other reasons to be disappointed in this "tokenistic" survey that she doesn't believe will provide the information NSW Health needs.
Catch Samantha's views in this blogpost (and podcast).
If you have had a baby in the last 10 years, you have until 9 November 2018 to have your say in the "Maternity Care in NSW - What's important to you?" survey. If you are like Samantha and find the survey too limited in scope for giving your opinions, note there is a comments field at the very end at the survey.
If you have had a baby in the last 10 years, you have until 9 November 2018 to have your say in the "Maternity Care in NSW - What's important to you?" survey. If you are like Samantha and find the survey too limited in scope for giving your opinions, note there is a comments field at the very end at the survey.
STATE LEVEL PROJECT
The New Tweed Hospital - Steering Committee
NATIONAL PROJECT
Increasing Consumer Engagement
PBB Media is offering locals and people from around Australia the opportunity to connect and find out more about getting involved in shaping your local maternity healthcare services. Join us for our next info night. Dates will be released soon, register your interest below.
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LOCALLY BASED PROJECTS AROUND THE COUNTRY
Mothers Moving Mountains and Saving our Birth Services
At the 2009 Peace Conference in Canada, the Dalai Lama said ‘The world will be saved by the Western Woman’. In towns and suburbs around Australia, we're seeing our birth services being saved by women. We have world class policies and research for providing the highest standard of maternity care, but health services are slow to implement them. Birth services are being closed in regional and rural areas, or not delivering continuity of care, the safest form of care. So, when faced with the removal of these birth choices, these women step from their lives as mothers of young children, right out into the arena of activism, often for the first time in their lives. Drafting letters, forming community groups, organising rallies, painting placards, attending meetings with health service officials, and more, is asked of them to bring about change. It's never easy, but without their efforts, change for the better would simply never happen.
The women we hear from in this episode are:
- Rachel Bryant behind the campaign that saved the Murwillumbah Birth Centre
- Samantha Wibberley, part of the group who is working to save the midwifery group practice (MGP, ie continuity of care programme) at Tamworth Hospital
- Helena Mooney, leading the community action to ensure woman-centred care like MGP is available on the Northern Beaches of Sydney
-We also hear from Melissa Fox, CEO of Health Consumers Queensland on consumer engagement, why it's important and what can be achieved with it.
National health and quality standard, Standard 2: Partnering with Consumers now obliges all health services to engage with their communities in the planning, implementation and review of their service.
The women we hear from in this episode are:
- Rachel Bryant behind the campaign that saved the Murwillumbah Birth Centre
- Samantha Wibberley, part of the group who is working to save the midwifery group practice (MGP, ie continuity of care programme) at Tamworth Hospital
- Helena Mooney, leading the community action to ensure woman-centred care like MGP is available on the Northern Beaches of Sydney
-We also hear from Melissa Fox, CEO of Health Consumers Queensland on consumer engagement, why it's important and what can be achieved with it.
National health and quality standard, Standard 2: Partnering with Consumers now obliges all health services to engage with their communities in the planning, implementation and review of their service.
NATIONAL PROJECT
Making our Maternity Care the best it can be
The evidence is in, the policies exist yet 92% of Australian women do not have the best form of maternity care - continuity of woman-centred care near where they live. Instead they must make do with fragmented care with a string of unknown clinicians, even though continuity of care has been proven to give the best outcomes to mothers and babies. The benefits are many, but the biggest one is that your baby is more likely to survive pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period if you have continuity of woman-centred care. Since 2010 Australian has had a national plan to improve maternity services, but delivery of our health services is so inefficient it has been largely ignored all that time. The good news is that national Standard 2: Partnering with Consumers requires all health services to partner with women and families in designing and delivering health services.
Yay! We have a role to play and a job to do. Find out about this story peppered with passionate characters, and what you can do in this podcast.
With thanks to interviewees:
Professor Caroline Homer, President of the Australian College of Midwives
Bruce Teakle, maternity services consumer advocate
Leah Hardiman, President, Maternity Choices Australia
Sheryl Sidery, independent midwife
Tiff, continuity of care mother
Yay! We have a role to play and a job to do. Find out about this story peppered with passionate characters, and what you can do in this podcast.
With thanks to interviewees:
Professor Caroline Homer, President of the Australian College of Midwives
Bruce Teakle, maternity services consumer advocate
Leah Hardiman, President, Maternity Choices Australia
Sheryl Sidery, independent midwife
Tiff, continuity of care mother