Over the last years numerous mums have shared their story with me about their birth in Australia and the period after birth. In the trailer of the documentary Birth Time you will hear about women sharing stories about their traumatising births and the faults in the Australian system (get a free copy of their book here) It doesn't stop there though. After women give birth there is a period that is very intense and ten years ago women, when you gave birth in the public system or private system, would stay in hospital and be cared for. Today you are not being cared for after birth anymore. You might get fooled by going into the private system and think that you will be cared for but don't be misguided - we have stories of women being left alone for days in their private room because midwives did not attend.
Midwives can not help you anymore
Midwives in hospitals are working overtime and double shifts, long hours and even then, they are not able to cover all the care that they were meant to give. This results in you being left alone on the ward, in your room. You can be in a private room in a private hospital or in a double room in a public system, it doesn't matter, you are on your own having to figure out what to do while you are still healing from giving birth. This may have worked twenty years ago when mothers still had their "village' but it is definitely not working anymore. After you have just given birth, you need to heal and recover. Your baby most likely needs to be fed every two to three hours. How can you heal when you are up feeding most of your twenty four hours? That is just feeding. What about bathing, changing nappies, having a shower and a meal yourself and did I mention you need to recover from birth too? We all know that women are superhuman already but this is going too far. You cannot heal and recover from birth while you have to do everything yourself as well.
The system is not working
There is a crack in this system and nobody has done anything to fix that. More and more women are realising that staying in the hospital is not the best option for them. You will be asked to leave after four hours and after the experience of being left all alone more mothers are choosing to go
home and be with their partner who can be there for them more often then not. At least you can carry the weight of taking care of your newborn together. You will have more opportunities to heal and recover and you are in your own environment which is much better for you. When you have organised some help with meals, cleaning, washing you will experience that customised service as far more healing.
If you can not rely on hospital care, what other options are there?
When you choose to go home after birth you can choose to purchase a package with your midwife to have the medical support at home. The midwife will come to you and spend quality time with you because they are there just for you on a time that you have chosen. When you come to think of it, being at home sounds like a better option for you as a mother. We all know that feeling comfortable, cared for and loved is also far better for producing oxytocin that will help you heal and increase breastmilk. Besides having professional support at home from midwives you can choose to have some extra family support by meal preparation, cleaning services and child (sibling) minding services. If you are interested in looking at some options for support after giving birth, have a look at our example care packages here or contact us to talk about customised care packages just for you.
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