Standing up for Home Birth - yet again with Katelyn Commerford

About this episode

Katelyn Commerford discusses the challenges and regulations surrounding home birth midwifery in Australia.

Katelyn Commerford is a busy mum to three young children, a doula, a Next Birth After Caesarean (NBAC) guide, co-host of the Australian VBAC Stories podcast. And if that wasn't enough, she's also the President of Homebirth NSW and the Co-ordinator of Homebirth Australia, and it's in this capacity that she speaks with us today. Homebirth with registered midwives has never been widely available to Australian mothers. The restrictions on their ability to practise (e.g. VBAC, twins and breech births), the need to have a second midwife at the birth, the decades of lack of intrapartum insurance, the need for homebirth midwives to also go through an additional qualification of becoming Endorsed midwives (which also includes a further 5000 hours of practice) means we have a small (and diminishing) number of homebirth midwives women can call on - especially in rural and regional areas. And now, the Nurses and Midwives Board of Australia are proposing yet more regulations that will restrict women's access to midwives. The main issues are that the second midwife at a birth now also needs to have the same insurance as the primary midwife and for that, she needs to be an Endorsed midwife. And…

People in this episode

Host: PBB Media Incorporated

Guest: Katelyn Commerford

Topics covered

• home birth
• midwifery
• VBAC
• healthcare regulations
• rural healthcare

Keywords

• home birth
• midwives
• VBAC
• healthcare access
• rural midwifery
• insurance
• regulations

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Homebirth NSW, Homebirth Australia, Nurses and Midwives Board of Australia

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