Melanie The Midwife in Springwood, New South Wales | Local service

Melanie The Midwife

Locality: Springwood, New South Wales

Phone: +61 425 280 682

Address: 16 Valley rd 2777 Springwood, NSW, Australia

Website: http://www.melaniethemidwife.com

Likes: 2465

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25.01.2022 Good on you @midwives_acm for standing up to this non-sense from @ranzcog. There should be no surprise at the strong language used in the ACM document, RANZCOG is not listening to the evidence... Women, midwives or advocates will not stand for having their rights in birth challenged. #waterbirth #australiancollegeofmidwives #birthinthetimeofcovid

25.01.2022 This is the view out of my home office window today ... if you know me in real life you know that I spend a lot of time ‘homesteading’, this includes tending to my 3 Nigerian dwarf milking goats, the veggie gardens, making fermented foods, cooking (like all the time!), bartering goods for services, tending to our chickens and quails and working on my granny skills... AND then there is the commitment to homeschooling our children and working for @westernsydusonm and for women as their private midwife AND the ongoing work for #transformativebirthwork ... life is beautifully full #privatemidwife #melaniethemidwife #homesteading #permaculturelife #retrosuburbia

24.01.2022 ‘At least your baby is alive’ is the most bullshit phrase ever uttered. ‘At least your baby is alive’ suggests that a baby and woman who are alive represent the top rung of the ladder when it comes to birth outcomes. I’ve got news for you, it’s the BOTTOM one! A live woman and baby is the minimum expectation of maternity care, the bottom rung! Not the top rung! The ultimate expectation of maternity care is that the woman and her family are completely blissed out and satisfied with their birth experience, they are blown away with joy and elation at what they just did and they feel autonomous and respected. A joyful birth is the standard, a live woman and baby is simply and expectation. #birthtraumaawarenessweek #birthtrauma #transformativebirthwork

23.01.2022 ACM is thinking through issues around freebirth... I’m still formulating how I would like to respond to their call out for our thoughts... what do you think? They have linked my PhD research paper to help this discussion along

23.01.2022 Ask me about the business side of being a private midwife The reality of being a private homebirth midwife is that you are both midwife AND business woman... today I spent the day processing the notes/accounts/logistics of previous clients and onto setting up folders/notes/accounts and logistics for the next ones. Each of my clients get their own hand held set of notes which contain their full record of the time we spent together through their pregnancy, birth and postnatal care... then they get a full copy at the end too... everything is completely transparent and the ownership is theirs. Have you got a question about homebirth? Or business management for homebirth midwives- go ahead and ask me in the comments below#homebirth #homebirthmidwife #homebirthmidwifery #privatemidwife

23.01.2022 Well this is great news! I am so passionate about birth on country being the NORM not the exception... you are doing amazing work waminda #decolonizebirth

22.01.2022 Oh! This memory came up in my Facebook feed this morning... I remember it fondly, I was sitting on my back deck in the Blue Mountains having my first caffeinated coffee since my baby was born 8 months earlier. The phone rang, it was my midwife colleague asking me to attend a birth with her... of course! It was great timing, I was all caffeinated, my tiny people were rested and my hubby was home... we traveled 45 minutes up the mountain and they gleefully waited for me to finish my work. After the birth my hubby brought me a green smoothie, I fed my little one while the birthing mumma fed her newborn beside me. Our son played with theirs in the hours after the birth... we all travelled home happy and fulfilled by our life and work #homebirthmidwife

20.01.2022 I want to tell you my most favourite historical midwife story of all time: The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, ‘when you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the birth stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him, but if it is a girl, let her live’. The midwives however were followers of God and so did not do what the King of Egypt had told them to do. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked the...m, ‘why have you done this?!’ The midwives answered, (this is my favourite!) ‘Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women, they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive’... they were such badasses! Defying the King of Egypt! Their slave master and oppressor! It takes courage, resolve and faith to be so bold as to stand up against such an authority... midwives are still doing it today- defending and supporting women and babies despite what is expected of them under repressive governance. This Christmas, I salute you midwives Wishing you all a restful holiday season. For me, this is a time to remember the birth of Jesus and reflect on his life.... also, what a woman Mary was, giving birth outside the system ... #thebirthofjesus #merrychristmas

19.01.2022 I interviewed Kirsten Small from Birth Small Talk last week (she is the latest brilliant mind to be added to www.transformativebirthwork.com). Her PhD had a focus on CTG monitoring in labour and the way she explained things really blew my mind. She’s got a blog too... if you are researching and gathering info in preparation, I recommend her stuff Here is a follow on from my post on CTG’s last week

19.01.2022 If continuity of care with a midwife was a drug, it would be unethical not to recommend it, it works that well... What am I talking about?! There are many options of care provider and model of care for your child-having journey and depending on your preferences some are better than others. For women who want minimal intervention and to feel satisfied with their care while still experiencing comparable physical outcomes for yourself and your baby, then the research is clear... that continuity of care with a midwife of your own is the gold standard. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews article, ‘midwife-led continuity models of care compared with other models of care for women during pregnancy, birth and early parenting’ published in 2016, brought together 15 studies and a total of 17 674 mothers and babies... and this is what they found. Women who have continuity of midwifery care were: - less likely to have an epidural, episiotomy or instrumental births - more likely to have a spontaneous vaginal birth - less likely to give birth prematurely - at lower risk of losing their babies - likely to be cared for by a known midwife in labour The authors concluded that midwife led continuity of care has no adverse effects when compared to other models of care and that women and babies experience positive impact from this model without an increase in adverse outcomes... so, you can have your own midwife, the quality of care that comes with it, reduce intervention rates and preterm birth rates with the great physical outcomes that are experienced in other care options. Can you think of a good reason why every woman shouldn’t have her own midwife for continuity of care? #midwives #midwivesmakeadifference #midwivesrock #midwiferycare #continuityofcare @cochraneorg See more

18.01.2022 Enrolments closing in 48 hours, if you know, you know. You know what I’m talking about, you’ve been getting emails for weeks now... the launch yourself into private practice midwifery mentorship... a year long opportunity to be mentored by me into your very own career as a private midwife... there are already midwives from every state enrolled in the course, the questions and enquires are lively and passionate... we are changing the face of birth in Australia in here! You have 48 hours left to follow your dreams. Link in bio (www.transformativebirthwork.com) if you need more information about what the heck I’m talking about. The rest of you lot, in you come- there can be no regrets #homebirthmidwife #transformativebirthwork #midwifementor #homebirth

18.01.2022 Are routine vaginal examinations beneficial? Do they improve outcomes for women or babies? Is there evidence to support their use? Nope. Nope and nope. Check out my review of the research and subscribe to ‘Melanie the midwife’ on youtube to get more like this https://youtu.be/7XSkRRaYH70

18.01.2022 What do you tell women about gestational diabetes testing? Or what have you been told about having this done in pregnancy? Truth is that there is very little evidence on how to best screen women to see if they have gestational diabetes and the evidence that does exist is of ‘very low quality’ according to the Cochrane database of systematic reviews. Most hospital policies advocate for universal screening of every woman, regardless of risk or health history - if this is what... is happening in your work setting, or if you have been told this is the way to determine if you have diabetes in pregnancy, it’s not evidence based... it’s just something someone decided. Farrar et al 2017 for the Cochrane database of systematic reviews found 7 research trials which included a total of 1420 women and they concluded that ‘the studies in this review do not provide enough evidence to guide clinical practice and health policy regarding identifying women with GDM’... if you aim to work in an evidence based way THIS is exactly what you must inform women of... that there is currently no high quality evidence to direct decision making about screening for gestational diabetes #gestationaldiabetes #evidencebasedpractice #evidencebasedbirth @cochraneorg #privatemidwife #transformativebirthwork See more

18.01.2022 Are you wondering if there is a reason for your care provider to put their fingers in your vagina during your antenatal/pregnancy care?... this is the YouTube answer for you. Short answer is, nope... no reason for them to have a poke around where they are not needed. Unless of course you want them too, which is also fine! In the video (link in bio or Facebook comments), I’ve laid out the research about membrane sweeping or what’s sometimes called ‘stretch and sweep’. If you found this video helpful, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel for more, and as always, pass it on and help your sisters out #midwives #obstetrics #youtube #youtuber

17.01.2022 I think a CTG is just another tool use to control and manipulate women in labour and birth... AND as protection against litigation. Continuous CTG (cardiotocography) is when a CTG machine - with two receiver discs, 2 waist straps and 2 cords that feed back to the machine- are attached to a labouring woman for the duration of her labour and birth in order to get a print out of her babies heart rate. It’s happening all the time as a result of birthplace culture and reduces the... woman’s comfort, access to water during labour, limits movement and most importantly makes very little difference to the outcomes for the baby, whilst increasing the chances that the woman will undergo major intervention. @who doesn’t recommend it, the research is against it... even @birthsmalltalk who has a PhD on this can’t confidently say that CTG’s have a beneficial place in labour care at this time. What we know is that we don’t know the benefits of the use of CTG, research hasn’t found anything of significance, except that they are bad for women without creating a significant improvement for the well-being if babies. What are the alternatives? The use of intermittent auscultation (listening in) with a hand held Doppler is another option and is recommended by @who as a suitable alternative... the world health organisation states, ‘in settings where continuous CTG is used defensively to protect against litigation, all stakeholders should be made aware that this practice is not evidence-based and does not improve birth outcomes’ @lifeandlens_photography @lifeandlens_kin #cardiotocography #midwife #obstetrics #undisturbedbirth #homebirth #hospitalbirth See more

17.01.2022 Good morning world ... waking up to a proper slap in the face this morning... Thankyou to the gentler responders on the original post who have given some beautiful guidance on the power of language

16.01.2022 The purple line, have you seen it? Have you used it as a diagnostic tool? Do you know what it is? Let me tell you about it. The purple line is an EVIDENCE BASED sign that a woman’s cervix is dilating in labour. It is an obvious line (not always purple) that extends from the woman’s anus up to her tail bone between her bum cheeks. Obvious only when the woman is using physiological positioning and forward leaning. In a 2014 study by Kordi et al, involving 350 women, 75.3% of ...women were observed to have a purple line in labour. Through their research the authors concluded that the purple line had high sensitivity to determine dilation... possibly higher than vaginal examination and was an appropriate tool to assist in the diagnosis of cervical dilation progress. In my clinical practice I rarely do a vaginal examination, instead, women give off so many signs that they are progressing and over the years I have become attuned to what labour progress looks, sounds, acts and smells like. I would argue that I don’t need a vagina examination to identify where a woman is ‘up to’ in her labour. The use of vaginal examination is not evidence based (thanks Cochrane!) @cochraneorg and so it’s time to consider how else we might gather information about a woman’s labour... and most definitely in ways that don’t interrupt her while she is labouring I went with a woman to hospital recently and the staff there applied heavy coercive tactics to force the woman to accept a vaginal examination because they ‘had’ to know where she was up to... I told them ‘I can tell you where she is up to, her contractions are regularly 2 minutes apart, she has a purple line, anal puckering, her sounds have changed and her babies heart rate is dropping during a contraction, she’s fully dilated and about to start pushing’ they said ‘you can’t know that’... she pushed her baby out soon after. Yes I can and so can you! #birth #homebirthmidwife #labour See more

16.01.2022 Have you ever had a birth that was dictated by standard hospital policy? Chances are, this is what you got. A must watch- artistic expression explaining modern birth care to an absolute tee.

15.01.2022 The less glamorous side of being a homebirth midwife, making, filling out and organising client notes and documenting the heck out of everything I do. This is the pretty row of client folders that got my attention tonight. Sunday night . Ps: there is no glamour as a private midwife, it’s all rock n roll! #privatemidwife #homebirth #businesswoman

15.01.2022 Have a look at this prospective private midwives... you asked, we answered!... take home message 'subvert the system like a ninja' https://youtu.be/mjmx9iosuGc

14.01.2022 This week is #birthtraumaawarenessweek where we become AWARE of the fact that approximately 1-2 thirds of women come away from their birth experience feeling emotionally and/or physically traumatised. This is not a new issue and I’ve spoken about it on my YouTube channel where I dive into the research about it. Link is in bio on Instagram and here https://youtu.be/RmpGRfZbYGw for folks following on Facebook. Be trauma aware @midwifethinking #birthtrauma #birthtraumaawareness #birthtraumaisreal

14.01.2022 A carrot from my garden that truely speaks to my right vs left boobie situation after breastfeeding for over 6 years and both babies having a favourite boobie... solidarity (.)( . ) #breastfeeding #carrotboobies

14.01.2022 Take 2 minutes, you can sign this and make a big bloody difference

13.01.2022 Share far and wide! So excited to launch the Midwives survey for Birth in the time of COVID-19. This survey has been built following in-depth interviews with midwives from around Australia. Please participate! Are you an Australian midwife providing maternity care services in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic AND are you willing to share your experience by completing this survey: https://surveyswesternsydney.au1.qualtrics.com//SV_6Do8XPO Hannah Dahlen and her research... team are conducting the Birth in the Time of COVID-19 study (through Western Sydney University). As well as looking into women’s experiences of pregnancy, birth and parenting we are wanting to find out the experiences of midwives providing care during the pandemic in Australia. We have already conducted in-depth interviews with midwives which we used to build this survey and we are keen to learn more by undertaking a national survey. The survey should take 30-40 minutes to complete. If you find it difficult to complete this survey in one sitting, please return to the link later through the same browser. You will have one week to return and complete the survey. Follow the link or QR code and add your voice to this study and pass this on through your Social media networks. Thanks so much! #BITTOC #birthinthetimeofcovid19 #birthinthetimeofcovid #covid_19 @hannah.dahlen @hazelkeedle See more

13.01.2022 Tune in!! I’m about to be interviewed by Radio Blue Mountains about issues such as birth trauma and also facts and figures about homebirth #birthtraumaawareness #homebirth #bluemountainshomebirth #radiobluemountains @radiobluemountains89.1fm

12.01.2022 My birth kit... not much to it because there is not much intervention we provide at home. Just some emergency equipment just in case... #privatemidwife #homebirth #homebirthmidwife

12.01.2022 And now a follow on from my earlier post about CTG use for high risk women, spoiler alert... new research shows they don't produce better outcomes for higher risk women when compared to intermittent auscultation... get the full story here and ask yourself, if CTG's don't work for higher risk women what is their benefit? and, am I providing evidence based care by the continual use of CTG? https://youtu.be/Tn6RE6ls4V0

08.01.2022 If you need a first step to understanding birth trauma, THIS is your opportunity... go to the Facebook page ‘maternity mental health matters Australia 2020’ and tell them you are going. This event I what you need in order to properly understand birth trauma in this modern world #maternitymentalhealthmatters @pbb_media #birthtraumaawarenessweek2020 #birthtrauma #birthtraumaawareness

05.01.2022 If you have any kind of ‘risk factor’ when you arrive at hospital during labour, usually step one is to put a cardiotograph (CTG) on you. This machine is strapped on with two receivers and waist straps and displays your babies heart rate and your contraction patterns on a print out. The thought is that it would provide a first sign of a developing problem and allow prompt intervention to get your baby out quickly. Problem is that this idea has not proven effective. We’ve kno...w for a long time that when continuous CTG is used on ‘low-risk’ women, the caesarean section rate goes up without improving outcomes for babies and now we know from current research by Small et. al in 2020 that using this machine on higher risk women doesn’t work to improve outcomes either. The link to the study is in my bio, or below for Facebook folk https://www.womenandbirth.org//S1871-5192(19)308/fulltext This is a literature review which looked at 38 different research papers including 11 randomised controlled trials, found that ‘current research evidence does not demonstrate improvements in perinatal outcome for infants born to women at risk of poor perinatal outcome when intrapartum CTG monitoring is used’. So, it’s time to ask ourselves, if it doesn’t work for low risk labour and birth and it doesn’t work for high risk labour and birth, why are we using it at all? Birth unit culture? Litigious coverage?... it’s certainly not for the benefit of women or their babies #ctg #obstetrics #obstetrician #birth @birthsmalltalk

04.01.2022 Mmmm, I love waking up to some delicious online public banter about myself... life is super easy right now so seeing this kind of stuff is totally mentally manageable (said no homebirth midwife/mother-in-a-pandemic ever )

01.01.2022 The things you find when checking the placenta after it’s born. Here, my dear midwifery buddy @midwifeemma is checking the placenta of @jessiealbert92 baby... she discovered a true knot in the cord and gave us all a little lesson about how clever the cord is with its wartons jelly that helps the cord slip and slide over itself to protect the placental blood flow.... also, the casual chilled scene with giggles and chilled vibe is such a homebirth mood #homebirthmidwife #homebirth #trueknot #placenta

01.01.2022 What is the collective for a gathering of private midwives... @midwifeemma and I decided it’s a ‘cluck’... today a cluck of midwives gathered at my place to refresh our skills knowledge. thanks to the initiative of Royal hospital for women in Melbourne who provided remote learning, @ryder5773 who organised registrations and communication, Sue and Annie from Nepean hospital who came in their own time to assess us (we are all competent ) and all the wise women who came today to share and pass on knowledge today ... women of sydney and surrounds choosing a private midwife, you’re in good hands #homebirthmidwives #homebirthmidwife #privatemidwife