A new little life every two hours

Every two hours, across Eastern Health, a new little life is brought into the world. In the last year, 4227 babies were born across Eastern Health Box Hill and Angliss sites.

Although the birth of a baby is perhaps the pinnacle of the overall experience, Associate Program Director, Kym Harrison acknowledges that the work the maternity teams do goes far beyond that special day.

“It’s not just about the birth, we’re preparing throughout the whole pregnancy for the birth of the baby. So the care that we provide during pregnancy is really laying a foundation in preparation for the birth experience.

“We’re trying to prepare the woman and their partner for the birth of their baby. This includes understanding their birth preferences, ensuring we identify any risk factors that might require additional care or investigations and involving the family in making decisions about their care. Eastern Health also provides childbirth education classes to further support families preparing for a new baby,” Ms Harrison said.

Whilst some births are planned down to the date, like inductions of labour and planned caesarean sections, others commence spontaneously keeping our maternity teams on their toes.

“Both Box Hill and Angliss campuses promote the use of water during labour, it is a wonderful non-invasive method of providing comfort for women. Eastern Health also supports women at low risk of complications to birth their baby into water.

“Our skilled teams provide care across a wide range of birthing scenarios. From supporting the very natural, spontaneous birth where the woman is active and uses water, heat packs, sound and movement to manage labour through an epidural, assisted birth or caesarean section and everything in between. Every woman’s experience is unique and we are here to support all birth types,” Ms Harrison explained.

Families are cared for using a variety of models of care across Eastern Health depending on their circumstances, making sure that everyone’s needs are met in a way that is catered to them specifically.

“One of the models of care that we like to celebrate is our Maternity Group Practice which is a Midwifery continuity of care model. Women have a primary midwife and a backup partner midwife who provide care for the family through pregnancy, birth and in the early postnatal period. This model is very popular with families with many women choosing to return for subsequent babies.”

Ms Harrison notes the important role our postnatal teams play after birth to prepare the family for discharge and support them during the first week at home.

“The length of stay these days is often short, so we provide further support by visiting families at home. Our postnatal midwives and lactation consultants have achieved fantastic improvements in rates of breastfeeding and receive wonderful feedback from women about their care. We are privileged to share in such an important part of women’s lives and love seeing women, babies and families flourish,” Ms Harrison said.