Midwifery is catching

Parents on run, refuse son’s vaccination
August 23, 2008, 5:56 am

A Sydney couple are in hiding after the Department of Community Services (DoCS) took out a court order to have their three-day-old boy vaccinated against hepatitis B. The parents, from Croydon Park, fled their home on Thursday to avoid police and DoCS officers after refusing to have their son vaccinated at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. They told Fairfax newspapers they believe aluminium in the vaccine can cause him more damage than contracting the disease.

The infant’s mother, who is from China, was diagnosed with hepatitis B several years ago, but both parents believe the illness, which can cause liver cancer and cirrhosis, can be managed more effectively than any potential neurological damage from the vaccine. Vaccinations are not compulsory in Australia but it is NSW Health policy that babies born to hepatitis-B mothers are given the immunoglobulin within 12 hours of birth. The treatment is followed up with four more doses of the vaccine over six months. The father, a financial adviser, is seeking an injunction against the court order. He told Fairfax doctors and midwives on the post-natal ward told him he and his wife would be arrested and they would lose custody of their child if he left the hospital without being vaccinated.

The Supreme Court order, obtained by DoCS, states the baby must be vaccinated by midnight on Thursday but the father is adamant they will stay on the run indefinitely. The case will be back in court on Monday, Fairfax reports.

There are only two developed countries that don’t have paid maternity leave - and Australia is one of them. This even leaves us lagging behind Tanzania, Iran, Burma and Djibouti.

Paid parental leave is not just about valuing the well-being and development of children; there is also an economic benefit in retaining people in the workforce and safeguarding the nation’s future prosperity. Isn’t it time Australia caught up?

Well this is the chance we have long been waiting for - the Productivity Commission is finally looking into the issue. Click here to sign the petition calling for a minimum of six months paid parental leave - and we’ll deliver it direct to the Commission and the Government:

www.getup.org.au/campaign/AllTheOtherKidsAreDoingIt

If almost every other nation on earth can see the benefit - even the very poorest - then surely it’s time for Australia to start looking after families. Australia currently leaves it up to the individual employer to decide - and those in the retail and service industries have almost no access to paid parental leave.

That’s why a joint statement was signed yesterday by more than a dozen prominent Australian organisations advocating a minimum of six months paid parental leave. You can join us in the push for paid parental leave by clicking here:

www.getup.org.au/campaign/AllTheOtherKidsAreDoingIt

Change only happens in society if we can demonstrate enough of us demand the government get with the times. You can help make this change by signing the petition today. If all the other kids are doing it, why can’t we?

Thanks for being a part of the solution!

We must relearn to trust the feminine, to trust women and their bodies as authoritative regarding the children they carry and the way they must birth them.

When women and their families make their own decisions during pregnancy, when they realize their own wisdom regarding birth and its place in their lives, they have a foundation of confidence and sensitivity that will not desert them as parents.

There is an inverse relationship between the amount of technology used in a woman’s birth and her subsequent self-esteem: The greater the number of interventions, the less well she regards herself postpartum. On the other hand, women happy with themselves in birth eagerly go on to embrace the responsibilities of mothering.

The triumph of birthing on their own terms leads to new depths of self-love and self-respect, emotions readily translated to their babies.

— Elizabeth Davis

From this months’ issue of Midwifery Today

Not sure how much of this is already up on here, but here goes:

I am Emma. I am 28 years old and live in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide. I have a kitty named Zaria and she is family to me - she is very pretty, and is 9 sometime this month! I’ve moved *mumblemorethan20mumble* times around the country but have only ever gone overseas once.

I recently got engaged: I proposed to my sweetheart Osk of 3 years (and he said yes!) and I have a fabulous ring to remind me of happiness when I’m down. We are planning on eloping next year at some point, possibly to New Zealand and having a big party when we get back, as neither of us wants a Wedding but we do like to party. I like cocktails - citrus ones or creamy ones, but not fruity ones so much. I love to sing in a choir and some of my closest friends are choristers from around the country and now the world. 

I knit, and dye yarn. I have a short attention span for knitting so I either knit small projects (scarves, hats, that kind of thing) or take forever to finish a garment. I finished my first jumper this year in a long time this year and I love it. My knitting blog is/was Knitting By Zen and knitting is my yoga in a lot of ways - I tend to get stressed when I can’t do it, and when I am stressed I try to do it more.

I love tea. And coffee. I don’t have a sweet tooth but love savoury things. I can’t eat wheat with gay abandon - I can eat small amounts of it, but not pasta or white bread. If there’s fat involved (say, pizza) then I can eat a little bit but not a lot. I’ve not gotten an Actual Diagnosis of this but I do know what makes me really ill, so I avoid it. For catering purposed I say "gluten free" but that’s not the case either. I love all things minty, and a good toothpaste makes me very happy. 

I have a yellow car. It’s BRIGHTYELLOW, not insipid custard yellow. I have a scooter as well which, unless it’s the middle of winter and/or raining, I ride a lot (2000km on the dial since last June now!). I also have a bike that I like to ride when it’s a bit warmer. I work at Bunnings, mostly on the cash registers but also in decorator, mixing paint. I’m the safety-officer type person for my store, which I know is appreciated by my boss even when he hates what I tell him.

That’s about all I can think of right now - I’m off to Brown Dog Cafe in Goodwood with my good friend Lisa from Midwife Mutiny in South Australia (yes, I hang out with famous people for coffee and FABULOUS lemon tart and I’ll be disappointed if it’s not there again. I’ll try to take my camera as well today - I forgot it last night!

Tonight was the first night of the independent midwifery workshops that I am attending. While they have been organised by a student I know, they are being workshoppped by a a total of five independant midwives. There were 16 attendees tonight I think and it was a mix of students (lots of students actually - from both universities as well as across first, second and third year) and midwives who were practising in a number of hospitals here in Adelaide.

Points to come out of tonight:

• Firstly, I am not just a midwife. I am a woman. I am a lot of things. I am not defined by what I do and shouldn’t be. That needs to carry over into my life and so, as of tonight, I am going to be more open about who I am on here beyond being a student and midwife, and also I am going to consolidate the two blogs that I have (see, I bet you didn’t even know I have another blog) and marry the two of them up. I’ll post a big "who am I" post immediately after this one, that will publish in a few days.
• That midwives are not the adjudicators of birth. They are the facilitators and cannot, should not, must not hold judgement over births. I wrote recently:
  
  My experience on placement was that I have a strong belief in this aspect of woman-centred care which as a student I did not feel confident in sharing in a group situation but which I felt able to carry through my care of women. I did observe a number of situations where a woman, on making an informed decision about the care of herself during pregnancy, or the care of her new baby, was not respected for this decision and the impression given was that, because she was not agreeing with the advice given, she was not making the “right” decision despite it being an informed one.

  I sought guidance from a midwife about how I could handle this in my own professional practice, and was advised to briefly document the discussion, and the decision the woman made, and move on without revisiting the issue. This, the midwife suggested and I agree, would foster mutual respect and trust between any midwife and her client, rather than implying that because the woman did not agree with the midwife’s position she had made the “wrong” decision.

  Which is what I truly believe, and it was a comment made tonight, along the lines of, if a woman makes a decision in the face of evidence, that you believe is not the best one, will you still support it? That goes both ways - in the system, and in homebirth.

• The universe really does make a path for you, if you’re meant to do something. I am yet to miss a birth because I am working, for example. The one birth I have missed, I wasn’t called for a very quick labour and birth but was told the next day. So I need to sit back and let each day come as it will. It’s very easy to get caught up in my diary and freak out at how I am going to juggle everything when women are due to birth. But - and this is me hitting second year I think - each day comes as it will, the curves in the path of life can’t be predicted, and if I miss a birth the world won’t end. It would break my heart to miss a birth for a woman that I am close to, but it’s not the end of the world if I try everything I can to be there for her. But in the end, I need to put food on the table and a roof over my head and fuel in my car, and not be Just a Student Midwife, which it is possible to when you have the luxury of being supported by a partner or family and don’t have to work.
• You don’t, despite what some people seem to believe and say either openly or in backhanded ways, have to have given birth to get birth, and to be with woman. Maybe that’s my opinion solely from the point of view of not having had children, and maybe that’d change once I have some of my own. And look - that’s me also having an opinion and putting it out there which is also new and exciting and scary. That was discussed tonight as well - the "having an opinion and not always qualifying it" thing…

I met some really cool people today, and was happy that I knew 2/3rds of the people in the room, and knew of several more of them. I put that down to spending far too much of my first 18 months of study, mixing with the wrong crowd at meetings and committees and conferences and training courses when I got the chance. This comes back to the final point that I can make tonight - that you learn so much more than just midwifery during your journey to becoming one, and how you do it is your own personal journey.