BaBs submission to the Maternity Services Review

• Q: What, if any, are key support services, including peer support which warrant national coverage?
In addressing this question, we wish to comment specifically on peer support in local communities, as we believe peer support in local communities is a key support service that is not currently available for most pregnant women and new mothers. BaBs, Birthing and Babies Support, provides such support. BaBs is a model of community based peer support that is specific to women’s maternity experiences. We recommend to the Review that the BaBs model be made available to all women, as part of a package of reforms that have been foreshadowed in the Maternity Services Review.

One of BaBs’ stated goals is “to expand opportunities for women and their families to find peer support, information and education regarding pregnancy, birth and parenting.” BaBs seeks to achieve this goal by establishing local peer group support as a forum to share information and knowledge of mothers, midwives, educators and researchers in the area of childbirth and early parenting. We work to support women and their families make informed choices and take action about pregnancy, birth and early parenting and to feel empowered and confident in their choices to improve their parenting experiences, health and life skills.


Topics covered in BaBs group meetings include:
• adjusting to mothering
• breastfeeding
• preparing for labour and birth
• birth after caesarean
• prenatal screening
• gentle parenting
• nappies and potty training
• consumerism
• and sleep issue for mothers and babies.

BaBs groups use reflection on experience, and group discussion, which are ‘maieutic’ forms of learning, rather than the ‘didactic’ or lecture/text book styles.

We recognise and value other support services which are available to women and their families around the time of pregnancy and birth, such as the Australian Breastfeeding Association, PANDA, CASA, SIDS, multiple birth association, and the like. These organisations target specific needs that apply to some women, addressing either social or health issues.

Local maternal and child health (MCH) services in Victoria provide a form of peer support for new mothers, in that they organise Mothers Groups for first-time mothers who give birth at approximately the same time. These new mothers’ groups are highly significant, and valued by many women. However they are accessible to only first-time mothers. Our members report that they find the peer support in BaBs, provided voluntarily by various women with children of different ages, and midwives, to be very important as local BaBs groups are responsive to their personal needs than the more structured Mothers Groups.

In this submission, in addition to our responses to questions posed by the Review, we are presenting brief case studies which are based on the experiences of mothers who have been attending BaBs groups, to illustrate the way BaBs is providing peer support. We propose that the Review provide support for the BaBs group concept, by means of recommendation to the Health Minister, that this model be developed and supported in communities nationally.

We have not responded in detail to questions about rural maternity care, as the peer support structures established within the local BaBs groups are possible in any community, rural or metropolitan. As the focus of BaBs is health promotion, enabling pregnant women and new mothers to increase control over, and to improve, their health in pregnancy and birthing, and in the nurture of their babies, we seek evidence based programs in pregnancy, birth, and early parenting, that are likely to improve health. We support the reforms to maternity services, as outlined in the review’s Discussion Paper, by which women themselves become the centre of the care, rather than the condition or the care provider. We look forward to the day when all women will be able to access quality maternity care by a known midwife who is their primary care provider throughout the episode of maternity care, and who works collaboratively with specialist health services when required. We refer particularly to the Cochrane Review of Midwife-led versus other models of care for childbearing women (Hatem et al 2008), and its authors’ conclusion “All women should be offered midwife-led models of care and women should be encouraged to ask for this option.”

Promotion of normal birth, and minimising unwarranted medicalisation through interventions into the natural processes in birth and establishment of breastfeeding and mother-baby bonding, are health promotion activities that will be supported by the reform of maternity services in line with clear evidence.