• Maternity Coalition
• AIMS Australia
• Australian Society of Independent Midwives
• Community Midwifery WA
• Community Midwifery Program, Western Australia

Your Endorsement of the National Maternity Action Plan is invited.

It has become increasingly evident to many women across Australia that major changes need to be made to the way in which maternity care is provided in both urban and regional/rural Australia.

What is Community Midwifery Care?

• where women receive one-to-one care from early in pregnancy until their baby is 4-6 weeks of age
• they receive care from an expert midwife they know well
• it is the most beneficial model of care for women

The Benefits of a Community Midwifery Model of Care

With a substantial and increasing body of research and evidence based knowledge, it can be definitively stated that community midwifery care produces

• better outcomes for mothers and babies
• greater satisfaction with birth experience

Whether or not women require specialist obstetric care to achieve a good outcome for themselves or their baby, one-to-one care from a known midwife is valuable in maintaining continuity of care for each individual.

Community Midwifery models of care are commonplace in other countries

In countries such as New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands community midwifery models are accepted and easily accessed through the public health system.

In Australia, the medical model of care dominates maternity services.

Australia's current Maternity Care

• has among the highest rates of intervention both in caesarean sections and other medical interventions of all western industrialised nations.
• policy and practice is not beneficial to the future health and well being of mothers and their children.
• is not cost effective for government health services.

Working Towards Change

Through the dedication and motivation of a range of people who have been actively involved in working towards change, a coalition of consumer and midwifery organisations has developed a comprehensive National Maternity Action Plan for the Implementation of Community Midwifery Services in Urban and Regional Australia.

The National Maternity Action Plan (NMAP) calls on both Federal and State/Territory governments to bring about substantial changes to the way in which maternity services are both funded and provided in the interests of women and babies.

Universal Access to Primary Midwifery Care

It calls on governments to work as a matter of priority towards ensuring women have universal access to primary midwifery care regardless of their socio-economic status, their ethnicity or their place of residence. It makes recommendations at a number of levels - from policy through to implementation - that are realistic and achievable.

How to Endorse the National Maternity Action Plan

Below is a copy of the NMAP for you to read and consider. We invite you or your organisation, to endorse the National Maternity Action Plan and the strategic direction it proposes as a worthwhile and timely document to be taken up by governments.

Such endorsement is being sought from a range of professional and community organisations and individuals across Australia with expertise/interest in maternity services and/or in the rights of women to world-best practice, evidence-based maternity care.

In adding your personal or organisational endorsement to the NMAP, you will assist in ensuring that politicians and policy makers take notice not just of the Plan, but of the many people who subscribe to its intentions.

National Maternity Action Plan. Final version September 2002

View the current list of endorsements (171k PDF)

It is intended that the NMAP will be publicly launched in September 2002. We therefore encourage you to notify us of your endorsement as soon as possible. Please forward your endorsement to one of the following:

• Dr Barbara Vernon vernon@webone.com.au
• Dr Tracy Reibel midwives@iinet.net.au
• NMAP PO Box 1336 Fremantle WA 6959
• Fax to 08 9339 0021

Thank you, and please feel free to forward this to any individual or organisation you feel may be interested in endorsing the NMAP.