THE region’s expectant mums have a simple message for the bureaucrats trying to send them to Nowra to deliver their babies – let the doctors decide who can stay and who should go.
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As expectant mums and people planning on becoming parents continue to fight against Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District efforts to send large numbers of women to Nowra to deliver their babies, several have questioned why the decision is being taken out of the hand of their doctors.
“Obviously the best person to decide on how much risk is associated with a birth is the woman’s doctor, not a series of questions and answers on a sheet,” said Kathy Bradley of Milton.
“Their training and experience will tell them who’s at risk.
“We should have more faith in our doctors, not the bureaucracy,” she said.
“No mum’s going to put their bub at risk, but they’re not trusting the mums and the doctors to make their own decisions.”
Kathy questioned the push to have more babies delivered in larger hospitals, saying bigger was not always better when it came to having children, after she and her daughter Kayleigh nearly died in specialist facility the Royal Women’s Hospital.
“I had a nightmare,” Kathy said.
“I wouldn’t recommend bigger hospitals at all, because if everyone’s busy you can be put to the end of the queue.”
Kathy said she was in the hospital during a three-day labour and left with minimal medical care because “no-one would take responsibility for me”.
In the end she started haemorrhaging, and both she and he daughter nearly died.
“They nearly lost me and Kayleigh,” she said.
Since then Kathy had three more children in country hospitals including sons Jett, four, and three-year-old Joey in Milton Hospital, although “they were trying to get me to go to Nowra for Joey”.
She said the experience was vastly different.
“I’ve had two wonderful experiences with births here at Milton.
“I couldn’t recommend Milton highly enough – the nurses are fantastic, the doctors are skilled and trained,” Kathy said.
Yet many mothers to be are denied the chance to deliver babies in Milton, all based on a series on questions on a sheet filled out by a midwife at the time of booking into the Milton Hospital for delivery.
The questions reveal a wide range of issues including socio-economic status, Aboriginality, a short stature, being underweight or overweight, dietary aberrations, a previous prolonged labour, a previous abortion, recurrent urinary infection, not attending regular antenatal checks or booking in late in the pregnancy, and even blood group incompatibility are all resulting in women being told to have their babies in Nowra.