Support Cath Tan's Midwifery Private Practice
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THE CALL FOR SUPPORT
‘Birth is one of life’s most profound transitions. I support parents to meet the wild beauty & raw intensity of this sacred rite of passage’ - Cath Tan
Cath Tan is a Holistic Midwife, Birth Mentor and Full Spectrum Doula in Geraldton, Western Australia. Through her business Soulful Birth, she offers birth preparation and doula care, pregnancy yoga, placenta encapsulation, lactation and postnatal support, and ritual and ceremony for the childbearing journey. She also supports two local Privately Practicing Midwives (PPM) to provide home birth and one-to-one continuity of care in her community.
We are asking Cath’s family, friends and community to help raise funds that will kick-start her own Soulful Birth Private Midwifery Practice, so that she is better able to serve the families of Geraldton and surrounds. Please donate what you can to support choice, wellness and empowerment in birth and to participate in the social transformation of pregnancy care in Australia - one birth, one family at a time.
‘When we birth, we don’t just birth babies. We birth ourselves, we birth our families and we reshape our lives.’ - Sara Wickham
Cath has had to jump through many metaphorical hoops, just as all PPMs have had to do. The sacrifices - emotionally and financially - have been great. To start with, Cath needs to purchase insurance ($5000 per annum), a doppler fetal heart rate monitor ($900), a midwifery kit ($600), a birth pool, 10 pool liners and pump ($930), as well as on-going midwifery supplies.
‘After 13 years in the hospital maternity system, I am well overdue to return to my roots. I began my midwifery career in the Melbourne home birth and private midwifery scene. Both my pregnancies were nurtured by private midwives with my babies being born in our bath tub at home in Melbourne, and my lounge room in Geraldton. Our family, friends and housemates were present. They were challenging births and also empowering experiences; not all smooth sailing and yet completely life-affirming and supportive of my transformation into parenting.’ - Cath Tan
THE EVIDENCE
Literature from around the world shows that women who have midwife-led care have better outcomes: a higher chance of a live, healthy baby, less unwanted intervention and are more satisfied with their experiences. There are no known downsides to midwifery-led care. Despite this evidence, socio-cultural, economic and professional barriers prevent women from accessing this gold standard of maternity care. Currently in Australia, only 8% of women can access this type of model.
In Geraldton, private midwifery is the only way to access one-to-one, continuity of midwifery care across the full spectrum of childbearing. The Aboriginal Medical Service provides midwife-led pregnancy care, but unfortunately continuity through labour, birth and early postnatal care is not supported.
The evidence also supports midwife-led home birth for healthy women experiencing a low-risk pregnancy as a safe, if not safer, model of care. A study published in the Lancet 2020 looked at 500,000 planned home births for low risk women and found: decreased cesarean and assisted birth rates, reduced epidural use and perineal trauma, reduced infection and severe blood loss, reduced untoward maternal events with no increased risk to baby. Yet again, despite the evidence, the barriers to accessing home birth are many-fold. Only 0.3% of women access this kind of care in Australia.
Private Midwifery home birth is not supported by Medicare in Australia. Hence, the financial burden is placed upon the birthing family. This financial discrimination ignores the evidence of the economic benefits to our health system of out-of-hospital-birth and improved health outcomes (healthier mothers, babies and families).
‘Birth has the potential to heal or wound us deeply. It is one of the most sacred and powerful of human experiences - & it is my deepest desire to support and inspire reverence & acceptance for this unique process of growth & transformation.’ - Cath Tan
To learn more about Cath and Soulful Birth visit www.soulful-birth.com and follow on fb or ig.
To understand more about PPM, midwifery-led continuity of care and home birth in Australia:
BirthTime - visit the website https://www.birthtime.world and attend a local screening of the award-winning documentary BirthTime
Midwife Thinking - evidenced-based midwifery blog by Rachel Reed https://midwifethinking.com
Birth Small Talk - pro-midwifery-led-care blog by Obstetrician Kirsten Small https://birthsmalltalk.com/blog/
Midwives Cauldron - all things birth, women, midwifery and lactation podcast
The experiences of privately practicing midwives in Australia - a qualitative study (Hunter, Dixon & Dahlen) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2020.07.008
Birthing outside the system: the motivation behind the choice to free birth or have a home birth with risk factors in Australia (Jackson, Schmied & Dahlen) https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-020-02944-6
Birthing Outside the System: The Canary in the Coalmine (Ed. Dahlen, Kumar-Hazard & Schmied)
https://www.booktopia.com.au/birthing-outside-the-system-hannah-dahlen/book/9781138592704.html
The Lancet study 2020 referred to above: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100319 Maternal outcomes and birth interventions….. (Reisma, Simioni, Brunton, Kaufman & Hutton)
‘Birth is one of life’s most profound transitions. I support parents to meet the wild beauty & raw intensity of this sacred rite of passage’ - Cath Tan
Cath Tan is a Holistic Midwife, Birth Mentor and Full Spectrum Doula in Geraldton, Western Australia. Through her business Soulful Birth, she offers birth preparation and doula care, pregnancy yoga, placenta encapsulation, lactation and postnatal support, and ritual and ceremony for the childbearing journey. She also supports two local Privately Practicing Midwives (PPM) to provide home birth and one-to-one continuity of care in her community.
We are asking Cath’s family, friends and community to help raise funds that will kick-start her own Soulful Birth Private Midwifery Practice, so that she is better able to serve the families of Geraldton and surrounds. Please donate what you can to support choice, wellness and empowerment in birth and to participate in the social transformation of pregnancy care in Australia - one birth, one family at a time.
‘When we birth, we don’t just birth babies. We birth ourselves, we birth our families and we reshape our lives.’ - Sara Wickham
Cath has had to jump through many metaphorical hoops, just as all PPMs have had to do. The sacrifices - emotionally and financially - have been great. To start with, Cath needs to purchase insurance ($5000 per annum), a doppler fetal heart rate monitor ($900), a midwifery kit ($600), a birth pool, 10 pool liners and pump ($930), as well as on-going midwifery supplies.
‘After 13 years in the hospital maternity system, I am well overdue to return to my roots. I began my midwifery career in the Melbourne home birth and private midwifery scene. Both my pregnancies were nurtured by private midwives with my babies being born in our bath tub at home in Melbourne, and my lounge room in Geraldton. Our family, friends and housemates were present. They were challenging births and also empowering experiences; not all smooth sailing and yet completely life-affirming and supportive of my transformation into parenting.’ - Cath Tan
THE EVIDENCE
Literature from around the world shows that women who have midwife-led care have better outcomes: a higher chance of a live, healthy baby, less unwanted intervention and are more satisfied with their experiences. There are no known downsides to midwifery-led care. Despite this evidence, socio-cultural, economic and professional barriers prevent women from accessing this gold standard of maternity care. Currently in Australia, only 8% of women can access this type of model.
In Geraldton, private midwifery is the only way to access one-to-one, continuity of midwifery care across the full spectrum of childbearing. The Aboriginal Medical Service provides midwife-led pregnancy care, but unfortunately continuity through labour, birth and early postnatal care is not supported.
The evidence also supports midwife-led home birth for healthy women experiencing a low-risk pregnancy as a safe, if not safer, model of care. A study published in the Lancet 2020 looked at 500,000 planned home births for low risk women and found: decreased cesarean and assisted birth rates, reduced epidural use and perineal trauma, reduced infection and severe blood loss, reduced untoward maternal events with no increased risk to baby. Yet again, despite the evidence, the barriers to accessing home birth are many-fold. Only 0.3% of women access this kind of care in Australia.
Private Midwifery home birth is not supported by Medicare in Australia. Hence, the financial burden is placed upon the birthing family. This financial discrimination ignores the evidence of the economic benefits to our health system of out-of-hospital-birth and improved health outcomes (healthier mothers, babies and families).
‘Birth has the potential to heal or wound us deeply. It is one of the most sacred and powerful of human experiences - & it is my deepest desire to support and inspire reverence & acceptance for this unique process of growth & transformation.’ - Cath Tan
To learn more about Cath and Soulful Birth visit www.soulful-birth.com and follow on fb or ig.
To understand more about PPM, midwifery-led continuity of care and home birth in Australia:
BirthTime - visit the website https://www.birthtime.world and attend a local screening of the award-winning documentary BirthTime
Midwife Thinking - evidenced-based midwifery blog by Rachel Reed https://midwifethinking.com
Birth Small Talk - pro-midwifery-led-care blog by Obstetrician Kirsten Small https://birthsmalltalk.com/blog/
Midwives Cauldron - all things birth, women, midwifery and lactation podcast
The experiences of privately practicing midwives in Australia - a qualitative study (Hunter, Dixon & Dahlen) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2020.07.008
Birthing outside the system: the motivation behind the choice to free birth or have a home birth with risk factors in Australia (Jackson, Schmied & Dahlen) https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-020-02944-6
Birthing Outside the System: The Canary in the Coalmine (Ed. Dahlen, Kumar-Hazard & Schmied)
https://www.booktopia.com.au/birthing-outside-the-system-hannah-dahlen/book/9781138592704.html
The Lancet study 2020 referred to above: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100319 Maternal outcomes and birth interventions….. (Reisma, Simioni, Brunton, Kaufman & Hutton)
Organizer and beneficiary
Frances Hale
Organizer
Houtman Abrolhos, WA
Cath Tan
Beneficiary