Katrina
“We chose to have our first baby at Royal Women’s Hospital and what started with many unknowns and overwhelm in a system that we were unfamiliar with, instead became an experience of empowerment thanks to the support of our midwife Marita and the MAMA team throughout our pregnancy and during the birth of our girl.”
We chose to have our first baby at Royal Women’s Hospital and what started with many unknowns and overwhelm in a system that we were unfamiliar with, instead became an experience of empowerment thanks to the support of our midwife Marita and the MAMA team throughout our pregnancy and during the birth of our girl.
The preparation and support MAMA provided helped us achieve a natural birth free from interventions. This wasn’t necessarily the goal, but understanding the birth experience more fully and having an experienced midwife we knew so well with us during all stages of labour empowered us to feel more in control. We are convinced this has positively impacted feeding, sleep and the general health of our baby.
Through classes and conversations at MAMA, we learned about the potential for a cascading series of interventions that can occur during a birth when entering the hospital system too early – often removing a sense of agency from a mother and potentially impacting a newborn in a number of ways, from breastfeeding to connection with mum.
Eager to avoid this if we could, while being realistic to the chance of medical complications, we opted to stay home and monitor contractions with the support of our MAMA midwife Marita, as is standard in MAMA’s service.
Marita visited us, conducted examinations in the comfort of our home and helped us make an informed decision on when to finally make our way to the hospital. Having an experienced midwife helped us understand where we were in terms of dilation and being able to measure the baby’s vitals at home meant that we didn’t get to hospital too early and in fact, had a natural water birth within an hour of arriving.
We went home the same day of delivery and had a visit from a MAMA midwife that night to answer our questions and prepare us for the first night and days with our newborn. This visit and all checkups were positive experiences, with all midwives from MAMA showing genuine curiosity and empathy for some fresh new parents like us and all the fears that come with first time parenting.
We can’t recommend MAMA enough for women and partners seeking true continuity of care and who are interested in maintaining agency over their birth experience.
We understand all births are different and there is no right or wrong, but we’re confident MAMA’s support helped us achieve the birth experience we most desired.
Thank you MAMA from the bottom of our hearts.
Kat, Doug & Lucille
Birth story by Katrina.