Rhianna Mitchell: Growing need to focus on health of mums in childbirth, too

A healthy baby is all that matters. New mothers are constantly told this, or something similar, when birth doesn’t go to plan. Almost died in childbirth? Cheer up, you’ve got a healthy baby. Felt pressure to receive medical interventions you probably didn’t need? Never mind, the baby got here in the end. I dismissed my own experience four years ago in a similar way. I’d had a straightforward, low-risk pregnancy but labour was induced at 38 weeks and five days, without a medical reason, on my obstetrician’s advice. We’ll break your waters at 9am, I was told, and the baby will be here by 5pm. Five o’clock came and went and I was advised that the woman next door, whose induction had started at the same time, had met the deadline. (No, readers, that did not help.) My baby had not received the memo and it was some time after close-of-business, when it became clear she was not budging and was now in distress, that the obstetrician expressed his disappointment that he would have to give up the theatre tickets he and his wife had for that night. My first born arrived via an emergency caesarean section several hours later. I was left with so many questions. Would there have been a different outcome if I had gone into labour spontaneously? Might this obstetrician be in the wrong profession if he favours a 9-to-5 work day? I was soon swept up in the whirlwind of motherhood but those questions have remained. I have since learnt a lot more about birth rights and maternity care in Australia — things I wish I had known then — through researching articles for this newspaper and via a hypnobirthing course I attended as a birth partner to a friend. I now know that while of course a healthy baby matters, a healthy mum — both physically and mentally — matters, too. Just how well we are equipping parents with the tools and knowledge they need to make an informed choice around birth is up for debate in Australia, thanks in part to the recent documentary Birth Time. It investigated why so many women— one in three — are experiencing trauma in childbirth, and questioned the “incredibly high intervention rates in birth”, which did not necessarily lead to better outcomes. Further insight into those intervention rates came this week, with a Western Sydney University study revealing early inductions have doubled, and in some cases trebled, in the past 16 years. Researcher Hannah Dahlen was so shocked that she re-ran the data several times. As Alecia Staines, director of the Maternity Consumer Network, said last week: “There seems to be a long-held belief that the experience of birth isn’t important.” But by speaking up, questioning and by arming themselves with information, women can challenge this belief. As Ms Staines argues, emerging from childbirth alive, with a healthy baby, should be the minimum women expect.

Rhianna Mitchell: Growing need to focus on health of mums in childbirth, too

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