I recently joined Maternity Coalition. MC describe themselves as:
"Maternity Coalition is a national umbrella organisation committed to the advancement of best-practice maternity care for all Australian women and their families.
Maternity Coalition is a national non-profit, non-political and non-sectarian consumer advocacy organisation. Maternity Coalition acts as an umbrella organisation to bring together support groups and individuals for effective lobbying, information sharing, networking and support in maternity services."
I joined MC because of their involvement in the homebirth protests I've attended in the past few months. I also have a couple of friends in the coalition and felt I could be a more effective activist by working with an already established consumer group like MC rather than continuing to be a lone activist or re-inventing the wheel myself. I also shared their philosophy:
encourages a woman-centred approach to the birth process; regard pregnancy and childbirth as normal physiological processes, not illnesses; stresses the social, cultural and psychological factors influencing childbirth; supports midwives as the primary caregivers for women in normal birth; emphasises women's rights to make informed choices about their caregiver and place of birth; promotes continuous assessment and critical evaluation of technologies used in maternity care; supports the development of services sensitive to women's varied cultural and physical needs.
Part of the reason I joined MC was because I liked the idea of starting a support group in my local community for women interested in learning more about birth, maternity services and their options (similar to what the ABA provide the community for breastfeeding, but for childbirth). This is exactly what I'm doing, with the help of a group of birth-wise friends in my region.
Our vision is to create a support group for mothers and mothers-to-be interested in learning more about birth and preparing for birth. We want to provide information about childbirth to the community and are planning to do this through monthly mothers group meetings at a community centre. These meetings will have a particular discussion topic (eg: breech, vaginal birth after caesarean, prenatal testing, routin interventions at birth, birth stories, dads and birth etc) and sometimes include guest speakers.
We're also hoping to do movie nights where we screen educational dvds about birth and related topics. And given the current situation in Australia, with the government attempting to outlaw homebirth midwifery I'm sure homebirth advocacy will be part of our work too.
Currently we are finding a venue and planning our discussion meetings which will begin in February 2010. If you would like to get involved or find out more you can email me: sarah@ilithyiainspired.com and/or join the facebook group we've started:
Our vision is to create a support group for mothers and mothers-to-be interested in learning more about birth and preparing for birth. We want to provide information about childbirth to the community and are planning to do this through monthly mothers group meetings at a community centre. These meetings will have a particular discussion topic (eg: breech, vaginal birth after caesarean, prenatal testing, routin interventions at birth, birth stories, dads and birth etc) and sometimes include guest speakers.
We're also hoping to do movie nights where we screen educational dvds about birth and related topics. And given the current situation in Australia, with the government attempting to outlaw homebirth midwifery I'm sure homebirth advocacy will be part of our work too.
Currently we are finding a venue and planning our discussion meetings which will begin in February 2010. If you would like to get involved or find out more you can email me: sarah@ilithyiainspired.com and/or join the facebook group we've started:
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