Hi Andrea
Yes it is a huge discrepancy but the law only relates to births attended
by registered doctors or midwives. Registered health professionals have
an obligation to report the details of each birth they attend whether
they occur at home or in a hospital. They have to provide the
NOTIFICATION OF BIRTH to BD&M and submit the perinatal data to the
appropriate department of their Dept of Health. It is the parents
responsibility to register the birth of their child.
I assume that MOST of the unreported home births are that way because
lay people would be unaware of their state laws.
Individuals who are aware of the laws also understand that if they DO
report any births that they attend also run the risk of "holding
themselves out to be a midwife" and that is PUNISHABLE by law.
It would be interesting for midwives to approach their own
state/territory Dept of BD&M as to the number of babies registered as
being born at their home address and then get the figures from the
perinatal data collections to compare.
Anyone want to get cracking in their state? I'd love to get data from
around the country. I have some Tasmanian figures and I have some from
Victoria but they are not as easy to interpret as the NSW data.
At the moment we are using the NSW figures to try and convince the
Health Minister to publicly fund the home births and therefore provide a
legitimate choice of skilled home birth practitioner for ALL women
wanting a home birth.
Cheers
Jan
Jan Robinson Independent Midwife Practitioner
National Coordinator Australian Society of Independent Midwives
8 Robin Crescent South Hurstville NSW 2221 Phone/Fax: 02 9546 4350
e-mail address: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> website:
www.midwiferyeducation.com.au
On 15 Sep, 2005, at 08:23, Andrea Quanchi wrote:
Jan that is a huge discrepancy, How many of these ones not
reported to Data Collection are attended by registered midwives
do you think? Surely the data collection could approach these
people not reporting, through the births deaths and marriages,
through the families that they are attending to cover the privacy
issues, informing them of their duty to report and where they can
access the data collection material. You wont get all of them but
you might get some more. Are they scared of being identified if
they are not registered? Maybe it needs to be free from this
issue if you want the data
Andrea
On 15/09/2005, at 7:58 AM, Jan Robinson wrote:
Hi Andrea, Denise et al
I have just been in touch with our Dept of Births Deaths and
Marriages again for an update on babies registered as being
born at home. The numbers change each year as there are some
people who don't register their child until they need to go
to school so I get updates for each year.
So far what we have in NSW is
actual number of home births registered number of PLANNED
HOME BIRTHS reported to perinatal data collection (NSW
Midwives Data Collection)
1999 493 139
2000 394 108
2001 388 144
2002 322 99
2003 383 109
2004 359 don't have the 2004 figures from NSWMD collection
yet - hope to have them soon - the BD&M are much more
organised with data collection but I guess that is because
they have motivated providers of their data (the parents).
Even though there has been a law since the 1990s that states
all doctors and midwives who attend home births must submit
their data - the NSWMD knows a lot of health professionals
fail to report. There is no law that states unattended home
births have to be reported to the NSWMDC.
2005 to date 197
You can see there is quiet a difference in the records
I'd love some budding Master's student to get busy on this
one as I won't have time for it until I retire and that won't
be until we get the home births publicly funded across the
country.
I feel sure that if primary care midwives had the medicare
provider number a lot of those unattended women would have a
registered midwife with them for the birth.
Cheers
Jan
Jan Robinson Independent Midwife Practitioner
National Coordinator Australian Society of Independent Midwives
8 Robin Crescent South Hurstville NSW 2221 Phone/Fax: 02 9546
4350
e-mail address: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> website:
www.midwiferyeducation.com.au
On 14 Sep, 2005, at 22:35, Andrea Quanchi wrote:
it doesnt say but they would be able to tell you. They
are quite forethcoming with info or you may be able to
get it from their website as a lot of the past documents
are on there. I havent got time tonight to look
Andrea Q
On 14/09/2005, at 6:35 PM, Denise Hynd wrote:
Dear Andrea
Have these BBA births in Vic increased since the loss
of MIPP insurance and some midwives withdrawing from
practice??
Jan Robinson said there was an increased in these
births there possibly some more un assisted hombirths
in NSW over this period!!
She found this by comparing the midwife and birth
notification figures because the latter would include
women who birthed at home and did not go to hospital
Denise Hynd
"Let us support one another, not just in philosophy
but in action, for the sake of freedom for all women
to choose exactly how and by whom, if by anyone, our
bodies will be handled."
- Linda Hes
----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrea Quanchi"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <ozmidwifery@acegraphics.com.au>
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2005 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: [ozmidwifery] perinatal stats
Unplanned out of hospital births (BBA) were 254
Andrea
On 14/09/2005, at 5:29 PM, Tania Smallwood wrote:
Just out of interest Andrea, what is the
number of bba's in comparison?
Someone recently pointed out to me that if
the women here in SA who had a
quick labour and then didn't make it to the
hospital, had had access to a
midwife who could have come to their home,
the number of 'homebirths' would
have been nearly doubled. Funny how those
women are seen as 'lucky' and yet
the one's planning a birth at home attended
by a midwife are 'stupid'!
Cheers
Tania
x
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Andrea Quanchi
Sent: Wednesday, 14 September 2005 4:41 PM
To: Maternity Coalition; ozmidwifery
Subject: [ozmidwifery] perinatal stats
I received my 2004 homebirths profile from
VPDCU in the mail today and
was happy to see that the number of planned
homebirths for 2004 was
181 up from 154 the year before and from 132
in 1999 so keep up the
good work everyone
Andrea Quanchi
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