Medical professionals cannot stress enough the importance of getting quality care for the duration of the pregnancy for expectant mothers. This is to ensure that both the mother and the baby are healthy. The mother should be healthy enough to host and nurture the baby in her womb and the baby needs to get a great head start at life by being in the best possible health.
Good prenatal care includes ensuring that the mother gets the all-important nutrition and does all the appropriate health habits not only during pregnancy but even before, if it was a planned one. Good thing, Australia has an excellent health support system that all you need to do as a citizen is to choose the right option according to your actual need. If you are pregnant or a partner or spouse of one residing anywhere in the state of Queensland, here are your birth support options, along with some resources for your convenience.
5 Top Maternity Support Options in QLD
Publicly Funded Midwives’ Continuity of Care
This option is where your maternity care will be provided by a midwife or a team of midwives from the majority of the public hospitals and health centres within the state of QLD. To have access to them, it usually requires a referral from your doctor. This literally means you will be handled by the same midwife or group of midwives throughout your pregnancy.
Privately-Practising Midwife Care
As the name suggests, you will be taken care of by a midwife or group of midwives that are practising their profession in their private clinics or office, with visiting access to hospitals and medical centres, for the entire duration of your pregnancy, birth, and up to postnatal care. With this, it will be up to you to decide whether to give birth at home or in a hospital. Also, the services of these midwives might be covered by Medicare.
GP Shared Maternity Care
This is where your care is handled by both your GP and the local hospital’s midwives and doctors. This is usually the option when there are inherent risks in the pregnancy that a general practitioner is not able to handle.
You can also have this setup where you will see solely your GP for up to 20 weeks and then meet a midwife or an obstetrician thereafter, until the 40th week. However, please check first whether this service is available or offered by your GP as some do not offer shared maternity care.
Private Obstetric Care
For this option, you will be provided care by an obstetrician who is a medical doctor in private practice that specialises in the medical care of the pregnant until birth, particularly those with complicated or special cases. Please note that choosing to be cared for through this and deliver in a private hospital, you need to secure a referral from your GP.
Public Hospital Maternity Care
With this, prenatal care is provided by doctors and/or midwives employed in public hospitals’ outpatient clinics, whether they be onsite or outreach. After birth, care may be continued either at home or in community centres by the hospital midwives.
Options Where to Give Birth
The choice of where to deliver your baby is up to you. However, the factors that will affect your decision include whether you have a high or low-risk pregnancy and where you live in Australia.
Based on these, your doctor may recommend some options that they think might suit your case and what will make you and your baby the safest yet convenient, particularly if you are located in rural Queensland. Some of these include the following.
Home Birth
This option is ideal for healthy and low-risk pregnancies based on the assessment of your doctor or midwife. The cost of home birth is usually covered by Medicare for eligible midwives, however doulas are a private expense.
“Being a business owner with a lot of competing demands on my time, I was hoping to have as smooth a birth as possible. Home birth was perfect for me and allowed my husband and I to be relaxed and comfortable in our own home in Dutton Park Ironically, we live less than 1 kilometre from some of Brisbane’s best public and private hospitals – The Mater, Greenslopes and Princess Alexandra (the PA)” says Samantha Graham, owner of Brisbane Tree Removal.
In cases where complications arise during labour, you can request to be brought to a hospital. Since it is not uncommon to happen, talking to local hospitals near you in advance about the help you could possibly need will be a great precautionary step to take.
Private Hospitals’ Private Care
This is probably the most desired situation as you get to choose your own private doctor or obstetrician coming from private hospitals. This is of course ideal for those who have the means to finance this exclusive service or those who have secured private health insurance that can help them cover the cost.
Public Birth Centre
Another option for those with healthy, uncomplicated pregnancies is to give birth at a public birth centre as this is very cost-effective because the service is usually covered by Medicare. There are available public birth centres in Mackay, Toowoomba, and Townsville if you are anywhere near these areas. But at your preference or if any complication arises during labour, you can ask to be transferred to a proper hospital.
Should you need to inquire beforehand, there are five available birth centres within Queensland. Here are their contact details:
- Gold Coast Hospital Birth Centre — (07) 5687 1437
- Mackay Birth Centre — (07) 4885 6000
- Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital — (07) 3646 8111
- Toowoomba Base Hospital Birth Centre — (07) 4616 6000
- Townsville University Hospital Birth Centre — (07) 4433 2779.
Public Hospitals’ Private Care
You can choose your own obstetrician or doctor to take care of your pregnancy by opting to give birth in a private hospital. With this, you can use your private health insurance to cover some of the costs if you are able to secure coverage. Here is a map of the available rural and remote public health centres and hospitals around Queensland.
Public Hospitals’ Public Care
Here, you can avail of the public hospitals’ midwives for your pregnancy care. However, doctors are also another option should you need them or your baby. The good news is that public hospitals’ services are usually under Medicare’s coverage.