Birth Centers in Australia
In a response to the National Maternity Action Plan, State and Territory Governments in 2002 started to respond to consumer demand for an increased number of birth centers to be made available to women. Whilst most birth centers are attached to hospitals, some are being established as free-standing centers much further away from hospital back-up. As long as they are within 90 minutes of a hospital, they are considered 'safe'. Most birth centers are now being run solely by midwives, with obstetric back-up only used when there are complications.
Some birth centers in Australia are moving away from the 'low-risk' model and are moving to an All risk model where women with medical complications are accepted into the birth center but extra care is provided to them where necessary.
Read more about this topic: Birthing Center
Famous quotes containing the words birth, centers and/or australia:
“I wouldn’t put it past God to arrange a virgin birth if He wanted, but I very much doubt if He would.”
—David Jenkins (b. 1925)
“[Madness] is the jail we could all end up in. And we know it. And watch our step. For a lifetime. We behave. A fantastic and entire system of social control, by the threat of example as effective over the general population as detention centers in dictatorships, the image of the madhouse floats through every mind for the course of its lifetime.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“It is very considerably smaller than Australia and British Somaliland put together. As things stand at present there is nothing much the Texans can do about this, and ... they are inclined to shy away from the subject in ordinary conversation, muttering defensively about the size of oranges.”
—Alex Atkinson, British humor writer. repr. In Present Laughter, ed. Alan Coren (1982)