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The World Health Organisation has called for a community midwife model - just like New Zealand's. But in some areas of the country, that model is far from the reality.
When it comes to having a baby in New Zealand, you're not spoilt for choice.
Strains on maternity services means that many families cannot get a community midwife, just as the World Health Organisation calls for the expansion of the model, saying it would save millions of lives each year.
It's all about where you live, College of Midwives chief executive Alison Eddy says.
"In an ideal world every woman and their family would be able to choose a midwife to be their lead maternity carer," Eddy says.
LMCs work in small group practices and provide day and night care throughout pregnancy, labour and birth, and postnatal care.
The model "we all know and love" is now being adopted by Australia, while the WHO wants to help countries around the world to use it, saying it could save 4.3 million lives a year by 2035.
But in New Zealand that care is not universally available in every community due to workforce shortages and resourcing issues that have dragged on for many years, Eddy says.
It means that many women have no choice but to go to hospital to have their baby, and they are cared for by the midwives and doctors who are rostered to the shift.
"There's a growing portion of women that we know are receiving this more fragmented care because of the workforce issues and the challenges the system is facing."
That is highlighted in two stories this month alone.
Just this week, an Ōpōtiki couple revealed that they were lucky that an obstetrician was on duty at Whakatāne Hospital last month when they needed an emergency Caesarean to save their baby's life.
Whakatāne has now lost its last obstetrician, meaning that people have to travel to Tauranga for that specialist care, a road trip that could take up to three hours.
And earlier this month, maternity services campaigners in Hutt Valley were shocked to learn that a special birthing unit for sick babies was shelved.
"The problems of the Hutt are not unique," says RNZ's health reporter Ruth Hill. She points to Health Ministry figures showing midwifery has the worst workforce shortages of any profession.
"Of the midwives that are working we've got heaps of them that are nearing retirement age, there's also a high dropout for students," Hill says. "Many are of childbearing age, so sometimes they're dropping out to have babies, but also with newly qualified midwives there's a huge attrition rate because they're finding it's actually quite hard to make a living as a lead maternity carer."
Hill explains the background to Hutt Valley's maternity services, a system under stress for many years, where community groups and local politicians battled hard for a birthing unit with community midwives.
The charity-funded Te Awakairangi Birthing Centre provided that care for only a few years before it shut down, then a replacement service promised by Health NZ was recently shelved.
"These so-called primary birth centres are intended to be an option for women with uncomplicated pregnancies. You're less likely to require medical interventions, but it's also - as you can imagine, a more peaceful environment than a busy tertiary hospital to have your baby," says Hill.
"This beautiful 12-room facility also offered mothers two days' postnatal care, rest, breastfeeding support and mother/ baby education which is not something you get in a tertiary hospital. Pretty much you're pushed out as soon as you push your baby out."
Meanwhile, Eddy says Whakatāne Hospital's inability to provide specialist obstetricians is "far less than ideal".
"We have been strongly advocating with Health New Zealand to look at all options to get this service up and going properly again."
She says a universal community midwife system for New Zealand is "some way off in terms of the bricks and mortar, capital investment to build primary birthing units in every centre".
"I would hope that we can turn our workforce issues around and we are seeing some glimmers of change and hope."
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