Registering a Freebirth in Victoria, Australia

To register a freebirth (planned homebirth without a midwife) in the state of Victoria you will need the following:

1. A birth registration form. You can obtain one from Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM), located on Collins Street in Melbourne. Complete this form and leave the section asking for your midwife or doctor's name blank. You must lodge this completed form with the items listed below within the first 60 days of your child's birth (failure to do so may incur a fine).

2. Statutory declarations from anyone present at the birth stating that they witnessed the birth of X at which time and on what date. Signed by the author and a registered Justice of the Peace.

To download a printable stat dec from The Department of Justice website click here.

3. A letter from a midwife or doctor who can confirm that you were pregnant. If you are planning a free pregnancy it may be worth having a one off visit with a midwife or GP simply to make registration easier. If you are unable to get this I know of one case where a couple were told to get a letter from a maternal and child health nurse (MCHN) who they met after the birth instead, simply because BDM were desperate to get a letter from a health professional. All the MCHN could tell BDM was what the couple told her, since she did not meet them prior to the baby's birth, but BDM still wanted to hear it from her rather than couple because she was a health worker.

The letter does not need to state anything more than "To whom it concerns, I am X who works for or at X. I saw X during her pregnancy on " preferably on paper with their professional letterhead. They are not taking responsibility for any outcomes or claiming to be your care provider. All they are doing is saying that they work in health care and they saw you while you were pregnant, it is simply to confirm that you didn't invent the pregnancy/abduct the baby.

Tips

Make and keep copies of everything you send to births deaths and marriages just in case they misplace something.

Keep an eye on your bank account if you elect for BDM to automatically debit, the registration fee because they can take your money for registration before they registering the birth.

If you do not receive anything confirming the registration within two weeks ring BDM to find out what has happened with your paper work. You may need to do this a couple of times.

It is also a good idea to include a cover letter with the forms you send to BDM explaining what is in the envelope and that you have sent them this because you had a planned freebirth.

Alternatively...

You could opt to go to hospital after the birth simply for registration, but if you do hospital staff will most likely want to check out you and your baby, do tests, and question you about why you chose a birth option they will probably struggle to understand.