An easy way to do your bit to save Private Midwifery in Australia

Holding a small info stall is a wonderful grass-roots way to promote the concept of birth choices to the wider community and to inform them of the unfair nature of this proposed legislation.

As we know, petitions and emails hold little weight in the lobby movement. Posted letters addressed to politicians hold far more weight and if they pile up, demand that the person sit up and take notice.

Setting up your stall is easy:

*Choose a location that is public, but where you are unlikely to get hassled by council etc. Some good places are small arcades where there is no apparent 'management', outside shops that are vacant, on street corners where you're on a wall not opening onto a shop, etc.

Have a table with the following:
* Printed letters to your MP or the Health Minister
* The 'Dear fellow citizen' letter, which explains the issue simply and more succinctly than the letter to the MP
* Some pens
* Pre-paid envelopes. This is a clincher. You explain that you'll be paying the postage if they sign there and then. You can get packs of 50 prepaid envelopes for $30.
* Make a collage of birth pictures to stick on the wall (hopefully I will be able to email you the files once I have permission from everyone who donated)
* Include signs that say things like:

Protect Birth Choices for all Women
Sign a letter to our MP here

No $$ needed, just your signature!

Midwife = With Woman

Save Private Midwifery


Script and Tips

* We found quickly that just sitting there doesn't get you any signatures. You need to engage with people as they pass.
* We also discovered saying 'save homebirth' or mentioning homebirth in the first instance did not work well at all, even with all the pics in the collage on the wall. See the script for a fail-safe way to get people to stop.
* Keep it brief and use neutral language as much as possible
* Smile and be positive. Fake it till you make it!
* Impress upon people that it's signatures you want, you aren't asking for money.
* Make sure people print their name and address at the top of the MP letter
* Print up JB flyers and have them on the table in case you get interested parties!


Here is the script:

'Hi there! We need signatures to help protect birth choices for all women. (They will usually slow a down a bit here, if they do, you're in!) I can explain it to you in thirty seconds, is that OK?

Next year the Govt is introducing legislation which means all chiros, osteos, midwives, dentists etc need insurance to work. That's fine yeah, except private mws can't get this insurance, because there is such a small pool of mws that the insurance companies don't think it's worth it. This means that those midwives will be out of a job, and women won't be able to have a homebirth with trained careproviders, or even take an IM into hospital...(indicate pic of me in hospy with my IM) she'll be redundant (OK, this is a bit of a twist, but she will be useless, even though she already can't do anything in a hospy setting...a bit of *spin* darlink!).

(If they look immediately shocked or horrified you can add)If a midwife attends a birth, she could be fined or jailed.

We think that even if you wouldn't choose homebirth for yourself/your family that all women should have the right to choose where and how they birth. It's a matter of choice. So today we are asking people to sign these letters to the MP. All you have to do is sign here, print your name and address at the top and we'll pay the postage for you.

(They should be reaching for the pen by now..Indicate dear citizen letter) This letter explains briefly what you are signing in the longer letter to the MP, if you want to have a read (most won't they will just sign)

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That's it! If you can get this spiel down, and stick to it fairly closely, I promise it works a treat. I honed this through trial and error, and the majority of people, if they stopped, then signed.


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Letter to MP:



Dear Michael,

I am writing to you to express my utter dismay and disappointment at the recent actions of Health Minister Nicola Roxon. As you know, Ms. Roxon recently presented draft legislation relating to the registration of health professionals in Australia, which will come into effect from July 2010. As part of this legislation, independent midwives will lose their registration and their right to work with women outside hospital settings, which will make homebirth illegal. On top of this, families who attempt to homebirth with a midwife can be fined $30,000 and the midwife could be jailed.1

I'm quite clear on the fact this issue relates to indemnity insurance, and the fact that, for all other practitioners this legislation affects (chiropractic, dental, optometry, etc), insurance is easy to aquire. The fact that independent midwives do not have access to professional indemnity insurance, despite the OVERWHELMING body of research that clearly shows the safety of homebirth and the benefits of one-to-one midwifery care, highlights the fact that both the insurance companies, and the Labour Government are ill-informed about modern midwifery, and completely disinterested in the fact that a whole group of professionals are going to be jobless, or forced back into the hospital system many spent years hoping to escape from.

This issue is about the right to choose how and where to birth, which is vital to the wellbeing of mothers and babies in this country. In recent weeks much of the rhetoric has centered around the fact homebirthing women are a small minority, therefore it's not an important issue. This is a discriminatory and worrying line of thinking for two reasons: first, there should be no basis to discriminate against a group purely because they are in a minority; second, if a woman is not free to choose how and where she births, she's living in a country that contravenes the UN charter on the right to reproductive and sexual health.

Women who desire an elective cesarean section are able to make this decision, women who wish to have particular pain relief are thankfully able to access this, but yet women who choose to birth with trained and expert caregivers in their own homes are going to be forced into hospitals, or to birth without any trained professionals to assist them.

This is despite the overwhelming evidence that points to the safety of homebirth. A recent Dutch study involving over 500,000 women showed that homebirth was at least as safe as birthing in a hospital.2 Other countries including the UK, Holland and most of Scandinavia offer wide access to community-based homebirth programs and offer subsidies to families who birth at home, as they free up hospital resources for the sick.

While those who choose to homebirth may be a small minority, those who understand and believe that preserving choices in childbirth are much greater, and this is particularly evident in your own electorate. Choosing how and where to birth our babies should be an absolute right in Australia and we want you to recognise and respond on this issue (preserving birth choices, not explaining the legislation!)


Yours sincerely,




(Sources: GUIDE TO THE EXPOSURE DRAFT OF THE HEALTH PRACTITIONER REGULATION NATIONAL LAW 2009
http://www.nhwt.gov.au/documents/Nat...20Bill%20B.pdf
Health Practitioner Regulation National Law
http://www.nhwt.gov.au/documents/Nat...(Bill%20B).pdf)
(Source: [de Jonge A, et al. Perinatal mortality and morbidity in a nationwide cohort of 529,688 low-risk planned home and hospital births. British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 2009; DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-0528.2009.02175.x]).



Where the numbers in the letter are, these are footnotes. Drop the text into word and add the above footnotes


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Dear fellow citizen letter



Dear fellow citizen,

My name is Kimba Griffith and I live in East St Kilda with my hubby and my two beautiful children. We're pretty regular people leading regular lives. We work our jobs and raise our kids, we're trying to tread more lightly on the planet and value our community, but we may differ from you in one small way; we chose to birth our babies at home.

You may not be aware, but at the moment there is a bill before parliament that will see homebirth become illegal next year, and not for any other reason than the Insurance companies won't insure independent midwives and the government is soon to make it illegal to work without this insurance.

We passionately believe that all families should be able to choose how and where to birth their children. Certainly homebirth might not be a choice you would make for yourself, but can you imagine a situation where you couldn't make basic choices that concerned your own body? Or imagine if you suddenly had no choice about where you sent your kids to get an education? You might not choose to send your kids to a particular school, but imagine if suddenly someone told you that you had NO choice…

This is the situation facing our family and facing all women of childbearing age. I see it as having a basic freedom removed; that of choosing what we do with our own body, and birthing in the way that we feel safest and most comfortable with.

The attached letter explains the current situation in more detail and includes some statistics on the safety of homebirth. I ask that you have a read and consider signing this letter and sending it off to Michael Danby (MP for our electorate) and even to our Health Minister Nicola Roxon.

This issue affects your sisters, daughters, friends. Please consider posting this letter and helping to preserve choice for women and families in Australia.

Warm Regards,
Kimba Griffith
95276303
gonanago@gmail.com



Michael Danby MP
Postal Address:
PO Box 2086
St Kilda West Vic 3182

Nicola Roxon
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600


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