Central Coast Childrens Directory
OUR PHILOSOPHY
Women Centred Care
Our midwifery at Belmont Birthing Service is based on recognition that each woman’s pregnancy, needs and experience is unique and individual. We provide midwifery care that is personal and professional in a warm, family friendly, relaxed environment.
Our vision:
Enriching lives through positive birth experiences
Our mission:
Women and their partners enter their parenting experience feeling excited, enthusiastic, confident and well prepared.
We believe:
Childbearing and breastfeeding are normal, healthy functions of the woman’s body.
The birth of a baby is a profound and transformative experience for both the woman and her partner.
The birth of a baby is experienced with joy, peace and harmony when the process is known and understood from a physical, physiological, emotional and psychological/spiritual perspective.
Model of Care
Our care encompasses a holistic approach and is one of trust in the innate wisdom of the woman and baby and the process of birth. We trust each woman’s intuition and her inherent power to birth her baby. We see our role as one of partnership with you in a normal, natural, transformative rite of passage. The research clearly indicates that women birth well when they feel safe and relaxed with people they know and trust. It is also clear from the research that birth hormones, which help the cervix open and help women manage the sensations of labour, are released when women labour in their own way in their own time and are not disturbed unnecessarily. We therefore do not intervene in the process in a routine way. Interventions can, of course, be done if there is any indication that labour is not absolutely normal.
Our expectations of you
We ask that you be totally honest with yourself and in your communications with us, and have a strong belief in the natural birthing process and the value of breastfeeding. We also ask that you seriously consider any recommendation that we may make regarding your care and take time to read and understand your rights and responsibilities as a health care consumer.
OUR SERVICE
We provide our midwifery service from the Belmont Birthing Service, located on the second floor of Belmont Hospital.
Aim of our care: The aim of our care is to enjoy your pregnancy with you and help to prepare you mentally, emotionally and physically for your labour, your baby’s birth and parenthood in partnership with you. This is achieved by discussion, education, relaxation, positive attitudes, kind respectful interactions and physical examinations of both you and your baby. We will provide you with relevant information to assist you in making informed choices regarding your care during your pregnancy, labour and during your transition to parenthood. We will give you every opportunity to ask questions. We will provide resources, information and referrals to appropriate people, sites, books etc to enable you to get your questions answered. We work in partnership with you and each other.
We provide this service for well, healthy women and babies. We refer and/or transfer to John Hunter Hospital if a woman falls outside these guidelines.
Venue for visits with your midwife: It has been our experience that visiting in the place where birth is to take place helps the woman and her family feel comfortable and at home in that venue. Therefore most visits take place at the Belmont Birthing Service. We also find that visits at the woman’s home during pregnancy are good fun and a great way to explore ideas about birth and parenting in a relaxed, enjoyable way. We therefore would appreciate being able to attend at least one home visit around 36 weeks to discuss your plans for birth and explore breastfeeding ideas. Of course, this is entirely your choice whether you agree to a home visit at this time or not.
What you can expect from your midwifery care:
We will:
• Comprehensively determine your health and wellbeing history and suggest any necessary tests
• Maintain full confidentiality at all times
• Support and honour your choices and experience and treat you with respect at all times.
• Tell you when we do not know something and seek the required information or help you find the information you require.
• Monitor you and your baby’s progress during pregnancy, labour and the
postnatal time for up to two weeks after the birth of your baby to confirm the
well being of both of you.
Monitoring in pregnancy usually consists of assessing your blood pressure (pulse, temperature, and urinalysis if indicated, for example, someone’s temperature and pulse may be taken if a person is feeling unwell; and a urinalysis would be done if the person had an elevated blood pressure); baby’s growth, movements and heartbeat as well as your changing and developing feelings about pregnancy, birth and parenting. It has been demonstrated by research that routine weighing of pregnant women and routine urinalysis are not useful. If a woman has an elevated blood pressure, checking the urine for protein is attended.
During labour, monitoring consists of temperature, pulse, blood pressure, urinalysis, baby’s position and listening to your baby’s heart rate with the Doppler. We also monitor any ‘show’ and liquor (the fluid around the baby) colour, plus your uterine activity and labour behaviours for signs of progress.
After the birth we will continue to monitor your body’s changes back to your pre-pregnant state and support you during the initiation of lactation and breastfeeding.
We will assess your baby’s transition to life outside the womb by general observation of this most amazing time of life and assess breathing, heart rate, colour, movement and responses, using the APGAR score at 1 minute and 5 minutes after birth. We will perform a full physical examination after birth and again during the first week of life.
• Inform you at all times if we have any concerns or feel it advantageous to seek another opinion from another health care professional.
• Ensure our care is provided according to the plan that has been devised by
you during the course of your pregnancy.
Schedule of visits:
Prenatal visits usually consist of the following:
• Initial visit for booking in
• Then monthly, or every four weeks until 28 weeks of pregnancy
• Then fortnightly until 36 weeks
• Then weekly to birth.
This schedule is the usual one, however it can easily be adjusted to meet your needs.
During labour, you may be more comfortable at home until you feel it is time to be at BBS. We are available on the phone at any time and we will attend you from the time you want us to be with you and decide it is time for you to come into the birth centre to have your baby. We will monitor the well being, progress and safety of yourself and your baby. We will remain with you for up to four hours after the birth. If any requirement for transfer to John Hunter Hospital arises during labour, we will accompany you to JHH and then hand your care over to our colleagues at JHH.
After the birth of your baby, we will support you according to your needs. Our contact is usually for two weeks. Our general outline of postnatal contact is daily for seven days, then around day 10, day 14, when you and your baby are discharged officially from Belmont Birthing Service. These contacts can be at home, by phone or in the BBS. We will ring you to work out what your requirements are. Some people are managing well from day one, and do not want a home visit til day 3, other people may need a couple of home visits on the first day. We generally visit you at home at least on day 3, 5 and 7, with phone calls being enough for most people at other times.
If you live more than 30 minutes from Belmont we are unable to guarantee home visits postnatally as it takes us too far away from the Unit if someone should go in to labour and we are needed quickly. So during the antenatal period we may make other arrangements with services available closer to you. We have people coming from many different areas, so it may be worth your while to see what is available close to you such as Home Maternity Services and Community Health Centres and G.P’s, we will of course keep in touch with you and be available by phone daily and more often if needed. You may also choose to come to the Birth Centre if you wish for postnatal visits.
Educational opportunities
We provide prenatal education groups. These include:
• A five week course or preparation for birth and parenting. These sessions are conducted by Parenting Education here at Belmont Birthing Service and can be booked by phoning 49213992.
• Breastfeeding education. Held at John Hunter. Call parenting Education to book in.
We recommend that you come to these programs because, whether this is your first or fifth baby, attending these sessions is great, we all have a good time and coming along enables you to:
• Explore current research and up to date information
• Have time out from your busy life to focus on this baby
• Meet other couples who are experiencing similar and different things to you.
• Have fun
WHO WE ARE
Midwives: There are seven midwives and one midwifery manager. Each of our midwives is a highly skilled, knowledgeable expert practitioner who has been through
a rigorous accreditation procedure to work in this service.
Your midwife: Your midwife is allocated as soon as you book with our service. She will contact you and arrange a time to get together. You will be given all the midwives phone numbers.
What if I don’t like my midwife? If for any reason you find you don’t feel comfortable with your midwife or would rather another midwife for your care, please let the manager, Kelley know by calling her mobile or office. Kelley will organize a change to best suit your needs. We realize that everyone’s personalities are very different and some people suit some people more than others. We are more than happy to change. If we find that we are feeling uncomfortable and not getting on with a pregnant woman or partner, we will do the same.
Please contact Belmont Birthing Service for more information.
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