Primary birthing and National standards for maternity care.

I was just reading the New Zealand Maternity Standards document from the Ministry of Health. Standard three states "All women have access to a nationally consistent, comprehensive range of maternity services that are funded and provided appropriately to ensure there are no financial barriers to access for eligible women."

There is however no primary birthing facility option for women birthing in Dunedin. There is no national consistency in the provision of primary birthing facilities for women. This is a matter that needs to be addressed if we are to support women to birth without medical intervention.

At last: Making a change, promoting normal birth.

The momentum seems to be building to raise public awareness about the dangers of ever increasing intervention in childbirth.
In new Zealand we have the Maternity Manifesto. This initiative is raising public awareness in New Zealand and lobbying government to:
◦Become informed about the impact of maternity services on the welfare of women, their babies, whanau and our communities
◦Set a comprehensive definition for ‘normal birth’ consistent with international standards
◦Develop an accessible, practical NZ campaign to increase the understanding of ‘Normal Birth’ and how this can best be facilitated
◦Publicly acknowledge positive maternity care outcomes.

And now, on the 1st of September, a new project is about to be launched raising awareness and initiating change around the world. Here is the video which launches this project. Lets get behind these initiatives and start to make a difference. The time is right! For all the women children and families we work with we need to get behind these initiatives and do what we can to raise awareness and support normal birth.

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Breasts and breast feeding

I have followed another link from the German blog mentioned below and found this website "Hathor the cow goddess". this site addresses issues of breastfeeding. I have been thinking about initiating a discussion here about breast feeding for a while now.

This blog raises some interesting questions about societies attitudes to breasts and breast feeding. Why is it OK to have sexually explicit images of women's breasts in newspapers, magazines and on television and yet people complain when a woman wants feed and nurture her baby in a public place? Could we have a discussion here about this issue?
I think it is not just an issue for the women who want to feed their baby wherever, it is also an issue for those women who feel so uncomfortable with this that they will not feed a baby in public. Some women do not breastfeed at all because of body image.

Should have added the breast feeding poster comes from the womens health action web site. It is the image used for breast feeding week 2002. (is it really that long ago), and features Lucy Lawless who played Zena Warrior Princess.