CANA has made a submission in relation to the Exposure Draft of Bill B for the Health Practitioner Registration and Acceditation Scheme. We attended the Queensland stakeholder forum on Friday 10 July along with a large contingent from Australian College of Midwives, Maternity Coalition and Home Midwifery Association.
Our submission is now available online at: http://www.nhwt.gov.au/natreg-billbsubs.asp

CANA has made a submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation committee in relation to indemnifying midwives to their full scope of practice to include homebirth intrapartum care.
Our submission is now available at the following website:
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/clac_ctte/health_leg_midwives_nur...

You may have heard about the Federal Government's 120 million package to improve maternity services. These changes are set to make a huge difference for women birthing after caesarean by improving access to private midwives in the hospital system. However, not all choices have been supported. Despite the fact that a woman can get a funded, indemnified practitioner for every other choice, including elective caesarean for no medical reason, homebirth has been left out of the equation. CANA supports a woman's right to choose where, with whom and how she births.

ICAN, CANA's sister organisation in the US are hosting new webinars on caesarean prevention. See message below:

 As a consumer organisation, CANA supports that every woman, has every choice when it comes to where, with whom and how she births her baby. As such, we include below a very important message from Homebirth Australia regarding the campaign to prevent legislation that will effectively make homebirth with a registered midwife illegal. CANA supports this campaign and many of our members will be attending the rally in Canberra on September 7th to stand up for a woman's right to a qualified registered practitioner if she chooses homebirth.

ScienceDaily (June 29, 2009) — Swedish researchers have discovered that babies born by Caesarean section experience changes to the DNA pool in their white blood cells, which could be connected to altered stress levels during this method of delivery, according to the July issue of Acta Paediatrica.  ...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090629081443.htm

In Brisbane Times
Harriet Alexander Court Reporter
June 13, 2009
HOSPITALS should be forced to ensure they have adequate supplies of blood for every woman about to give birth by caesarean, a NSW coroner has recommended.
Rebecca Murray died from multiple-organ failure after delivering a healthy baby girl by emergency caesarean at Bathurst Base Hospital in June 2007....
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/hospitals-should-have-blood-for...

120 Million Budget package delivers good news to the 1 in 3 women affected by caesarean surgery says Caesarean organisation.

Mother of three and National Spokesperson for Caesarean Awareness Network Australia, Caroline McCullough said:
 
“We are incredibly excited about the possibility of women having greater access to private midwives.
 

I've been campaigning and lobbying for maternity services reform for the past seven years so to hear tonight's budget announcement that Maternity Services was going to be given a 120million boost by the Federal Government was food for my weary soul.