Aims: Government must provide more resources

11 May 2007

Aims: Government must provide more resources
The government must put more resources into funding for midwifery if it was truly to offer free choice for how a woman gives birth, according to the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services (Aims).

Chairperson of Aims Beverley Beech said that while maternity services continued to be underfunded and overworked there was no real possibility of being able to offer every mother-to-be the option of having her baby at home.

"Until this government puts some resources in, it's going to continue to be difficult. There is a very serious shortage of midwives. And it means that women, in the meantime, are getting very substandard care as a result of this shortage," Ms Beech stressed.

She also said that any expectant mums who wanted a homebirth should be determined to make her wishes known to her health practitioners and to remain persistent if she was advised to have her baby elsewhere.

""[Home births] are an option for every woman. And it's the woman who makes the decision," she said.