CHILDREN BY CHOICE ASSOCIATION INCORPORATED

Birthing Options

Generally within Australia, there are 3 options for birthing: in a hospital, a birthing centre, or a home birth.

Hospital

Each hospital is different in the services it offers and it’s policies. It is therefore important to ask several questions before deciding on a hospital.

If you are a public patient in a public hospital, you will only pay a Medicare levy but will have no choice over the staff who attend to you during labour.

If you are a private patient in a public hospital, you can select your obstetrician who will then be responsible for your antenatal care and delivery. In a private hospital, your surroundings may be more comfortable, however there are seldom resident medical staff on site. The costs of private health care may be covered, to some extent, by private health insurance.

Mater Mothers’ Hospital, Brisbane 
Care for mothers and babies during antenatal, labour, birth, and postnatal periods.  Both public and private hospital facilities.

Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital
Antenatal care, childbirth education classes, midwifery, birth suites, and postnatal services.

For a list of maternity hospitals across Queensland, try the bubhub listing.

Birthing Centre

In some larger cities, there are birthing centres attached to hospitals which provide clients with normal, low risk births the opportunity to make more choices in their delivery and minimise unnecessary intervention. They are predominantly staffed by midwives and allow women to have more support people present during the delivery.

These services are in great demand because of the control they give to women during birth, and their easy access to hospital facilities in the event of complications. Therefore, it is very difficult for women to book into these facilities.

Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital
or see also Friends of the Birth Centre

Home Birth

In general, homebirths are attended by midwives and place emphasis on the client having control over decision making, the environment, and the interventions utilised. A number of studies have indicated that women who have homebirths have less medical intervention in their births and less use of painkillers than do women who give birth in hospitals.

With a homebirth, there remains the possibility that you may need to be transferred to a hospital if complications occur, and thus in your decision-making it is important to weigh up whether the risks from increased medical intervention outweigh the risks of an emergency occurring at home. When deciding on a homebirth, other risk factors should also be considered, such as a history of previous premature births, stillbirths, or caesarean sections, twin pregnancy, or active herpes.

Home Midwifery Association
Information on midwife networks and childbirth.