"My positive birth experiences with midwifery group practice"

I have now birthed my two children (in 2021 and 2024) at King Edward Memorial Hospital and have been lucky enough to experience antenatal care with known midwives through the midwifery group practice model. In 2021 I was cared for by Shardalee at the Family Birth Centre (KEMH FBC) - an incredibly passionate, knowledgeable, young midwife who introduced me to the importance of evidence-based birthing practices and informed choice. This led to a beautiful, positive and empowering birth as a first-time mother that I will always be grateful for. I attribute my quick recovery and minimal intervention to Shardalee's encouragement that I learn about evidence-based birthing for myself.

In 2024, I had a very different pregnancy and birth experience to my first. My baby was found to have early onset IUGR at approximately 18 weeks gestation. I had initially been accepted by the KEMH FBC to be cared for by Shardalee again. However, as my baby was found to be under the fifth centile, I could not birth her at the KEMH FBC as it was deemed a high risk pregnancy/birth. Shardalee and the MGP managers advocated strongly for me to be cared for by a known midwife and luckily I was accepted into MGP 4 and partnered with Jascinta for the rest of my antenatal care. I will always be so grateful for this and for their genuine concern that I receive continuous care again having had such a positive birth experience in 2021.

I was also very grateful to receive high-level care by the Gold Team led by Dr Lindsay. I attended fortnightly scans with Dr Lindsay until I was 37 weeks gestation, at which point she advised I be induced at 38 weeks. The information about my baby's growth and health, as well as the advice about induction that I received from Dr Lindsay was always measured and reassuring.

The care I received from my known midwife, Jascinta (MGP 4), was also very measured and reassuring, and her advice was always provided with the best outcomes in mind for me and my baby. Jascinta is also passionate, knowledgeable and warm midwife who I feel very lucky to have received my care from. Despite being paired up for a relatively short amount of time, given I was quite advanced in my pregnancy already, we connected really well and I feel she truly understood the birth experience I wanted from the beginning (i.e. minimal intervention, vaginal).

Both Dr Lindsay and Jascinta considered my wishes for my birth experience and helped me to achieve as positive a birth as possible, such as working together to determine a suitable date for induction, enabling me to try a membrane sweep before induction, and ensuring that I could still be as active/mobile as possible during labour by using wireless ECG monitors.

Jascinta was a steady, calming, and reassuring presence during my birth and her postnatal care was also of a high level. In particular she had very good advice on breastfeeding and expressing which I am hugely appreciative of because the experience of caring for a late pre-term baby has been very different to my first child who was born at 40 weeks gestation.

I have also been very grateful to have access to 1-on-1 consultation with the lactation consultants at the Breastfeeding Centre both in 2021 and 2024. The advice and guidance on how to exclusively breastfeed my babies has been amazing and a service that I think could not be more vital.

All in all, I have been very impressed by the services and care at KEMH. I am also very grateful to have delivered both of my children with known midwives and I believe more women should have access to this model of care.