How MAMA Midwives work with Melbourne hospitals
When parents in Melbourne start planning pregnancy care or birth, they often begin by searching their local hospital. It’s a natural starting point: “Where am I actually giving birth?” By doing this, there is a potential to miss out an opportunity to truly explore the options available to you. Midwifery care truly goes beyond the location of birth.
Many families don’t realise that even if you choose to birth in a hospital, you can have a MAMA midwife to provide pregnancy care, to accompany you to birth in a hospital and ongoing postnatal care for eight weeks after birth!
Pregnancy: shared care with Melbourne hospitals
MAMA midwives have antenatal shared care arrangements with the major hospitals our families commonly attend, including:
Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s
The Royal Women’s Hospital
Monash Medical Centre
Mercy Hospital for Women
Frankston Hospital
While you have some appointments with your hospital team, we continue to offer unlimited pregnancy appointments in our clinic. Our long appointments enable you to build connections with your midwife, receive education and ask as many questions as you wish. This means many families begin their care with us from early pregnancy, build trust and have continuity of care, and still plan for a hospital birth, if that is where they feel safest.
Birth:
We support you in any Victorian hospital, while remaining independent
MAMA midwives can attend any public or private hospital in Victoria to support you in birth.
We have made a conscious decision not to become ‘credentialled’ under hospital systems. This keeps our clinical practice centred on evidence and woman-centred care, not hospital policy or compliance.
“Independence protects the woman. It means the midwife works for the client, not the institution. When we remain independent, we can advocate without the pressure of policy, and women’s decision-making stays central. That’s what enables us to achieve the outcomes that we do.” - Kelly
Postnatal collaboration: hospitals have sought support from MAMA
Public hospitals such as The Women’s and Joan Kirner have referral agreements with MAMA midwifery practice when they are unable to provide care to the number of clients they have in busy months. In addition to these arrangements with public hospitals, families who birth in public or private hospitals often choose MAMA midwives to become their postpartum care providers. This is care that can be availed of for up to 8 weeks postpartum, so it can be the missing ingredient that families desire regardless of where they birth.
Helping re-establish a public homebirth program
We are so proud of a recent partnership with Monash Medical Centre, who approached MAMA to help re-establish the publicly funded homebirth program at their Casey campus. Over the past six months, MAMA midwives have provided training and support to Casey midwives, and the program has now restarted. We hope that more hospitals follow in these footsteps and connect with us, we are always happy to provide guidance to ensure families have more choice.
“Women should have a right to choose where and with whom they birth. More access to homebirth options means more choice for pregnant and birthing people. We were so proud to help to get this service up and running again so families can benefit” - Kelly
Why this matters for families
Choosing MAMA does not mean choosing homebirth or being disconnected from services that might be important to you. Client-centred care & collaboration means your care is centred on continuity and what is important to you, and looks deeper than just the building that you birth in. It truly means that,
You can birth at home or in hospital
You can keep the same known midwife throughout
You can have someone in the room who knows you and your family
If you want to talk through your options, we're here to help. Talk to one of our midwives in a bulk billed discovery visit!