Walk puts spotlight on region’s midwives

MIDWIVES came together to join an international celebration of their profession last week while calling for more students to consider taking up work in the regions.

International Day of the Midwife was recognised last Thursday with an awareness walk in town, and Christine Trevena said it was a boost for her and her colleagues.

“There’s no more special time than when someone has a baby. Those eight hours that you might spend in a birth suite with someone, there’s no other relationship like it,” she said.

“I can’t stress how much we really develop a relationship with those families that we’re looking after, and then that first precious moment is the best thing you’ll ever see.”

Ms Trevena only considered the career about six years ago after the birth of her first child and has since lost count of all the newborns she’s helped deliver.

As a lecturer in midwifery at La Trobe University, she said there were projects currently underway around central and northern Victoria aimed at drawing more midwives out to the regions and ensuring expectant mothers get the care they need locally.

“My passion is to continue having women’s carers as close to home as possible, because some of our women travel over an hour and a half to have their baby,” she said.

Castlemaine, Maryborough and Cohuna hospitals are all in the process of redesigning their midwifery services to a group practice model, meaning mothers have a known midwife throughout and immediately following their pregnancy.

“Familiarity is something really strong with women when they have babies, so that enables our midwives who have worked really hard for their degrees to practice to their full scope of practice,” Ms Trevena said.

“The hospitals are working in conjunction with La Trobe in regards to assessing the validity of these new projects as well as working with the Department of Health and the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation.”