Homebirth with an independent midwife to become illegal?!

Yes you read correctly. The Australian government is planning to take one huge step backwards and make homebirth with an independent midwife in attendance illegal from July 2010. What a country. Aint I proud to call it home. Remind me again why I worked so hard to get my husband's visa so we could move back to Australia....something about a better quality of life..... 

This is unfuckingbelievable. Independent midwives like the midwife that attended the birth of my daughter cannot gain professional indemnity insurance (as they are too small a group to insure) and would therefore not be able to work in this capacity. It will be illegal for me to have a homebirth with a qualified independent midwife in attendance from July 2010. I will have lost my freedom of choice and many midwives will have lost their livelihood. Essentially it is discriminatory against both the Australian women who chose to birth at home with an independent midwife and the independent midwives who attend these births. 

Want more info about this? 

GUIDE TO THE EXPOSURE DRAFT OF THE HEALTH PRACTITIONER REGULATION NATIONAL LAW 2009

Save Birth Choices

Some commentary on this topic; 

Important Message From Your Security Minister

Homebirth to become illegal in a year.

The banishment of autonomy, our stories and folklore

Songs;

Song to Nicola Roxon

My life, My Choice

Keep Homebirth with a Midwife Legal in Australia!

What YOU can do

Even if you don't homebirth but can see this as a blatant removal of rights, please have your say and let people know this is wrong. What can you do to help prevent this from happening?

• Sign this online petition. 
  
• Read this page for ideas.
• Write a submission to the Senate Committee by July 20 (2009) regarding the Health Legislation Amendment (Midwives and Nurse Practitioners) Bill 2009 and two related Bills. There is a pro-forma you can use here along with details of where to send it (e-mail).
  
• Write a letter to your MP letting them know how you feel about this.
• Visit your MP. Even more impact than just writing.
• E-mail me to have your name added to a petition aiming to make sure that home birth remains a legal choice for Australian women. 
• Join the rally to save homebirth outside Parliament House on September 7th at 11am. My daughter and I will be there.
• Tell everyone you know about this.
• Let me know if you can think of anything else.

It starts here but who knows what is next. Maybe it'll be your right to own a car or have a blog? 

Reversible pants

For the first time since my daughter was born, I have used my sewing machine. The logistics of trying to sew with her at home was too much for me to figure out until now. I bought a pattern for reversible pants a few weeks ago and I took a look at it this morning. It looked pretty easy, so I thought i'd give it a go with some groovy material I had picked up on sale last week. Thanks to the pattern being very easy to follow, the pants were finished in a few hours. 

I am so pleased with myself, not only for making the pants but for finally pushing all my excuses and worries aside and just giving it a go. Woohoo, i'm back baby.

Helping out with the bushfire victims

As many Australians do, I feel so helpless with the bushfire tragedy in Australia. We can give cash but many people want to help out in a more practical way. I tried to give blood but they wouldn't take blood from a lactating woman. 

At the same time people were suffering in these fires, a lot of wildlife was too. I heard from someone who works with injured wildlife in Victoria that they were looking for more knitted pouches to keep baby animals in. Often the mother koalas/wombats/possums are killed in fires but their tiny babies are saved from harm protected in their mother's pouch. Animal rescue members are trained to look in dead and inured animal's pouches for these young ones. They need a lot of one on one care and are kept in knitted pouches made to resemble the one they came from. So i'm giving it a go. If you read my previous post, you'd see what a slow knitter I am, but I just have to try. They also need flannelet inside pouches to line the woollen ones, so i'm going to try and make some of those too.

Pants finished!

I finally finished those pants I was knitting for my daughter in an earlier post. I got them done just before midnight on Christmas eve. They took me about six months to finish! Here they are on my daughter taken while on holidays in Tasmania.

Lucky finger sack.

Umm...ok..., originally uploaded by BeingWanderLust.

Whadda reckon this is for? Come on, guesses please.

Konichiwa!

Konichiwa!, originally uploaded by BeingWanderLust.

I was used to seeing Engrish on shirts in Japan but here it is in reverse. Japanese on a shirt in Australia. Would you wear this? In which country? Would you buy it for your daughter?

Beginner knits

I thought it was about time I learned to knit. So recently while visiting my Mum, she taught me the basics. I had a go at basic baby leg warmers and made two pairs.

Next I am onto a proper project following a pattern and am having a go at pants! Here's what i've done so far.

Making cloth nappies

A few months before bub arrived, I started to get interested in cloth nappies. Not just those flat white squares of terry or flannelette but the fitted type. Man oh man, have you looked into cloth nappies?! There are like a million different types- AIOs (all in ones), pocket, fitted etc. I spent hours on the internet researching the different types and how to make them as I thought i'd give them a go. I ended up buying a handful of different types just to get my head around how they're made. The net has a few free patterns too, so I got to work trying to make a few. I didn't want to make too many before bub arrived though, as I couldn't test them out to see which ones worked or not.

This is the first one I made of hubby's old T-shirts and some flannel. I guess it's a fitted type. It doesn't have any waterproof layer, so it'd need a cover or just as a quick day time nappy.

It's too big for bub right now, so I haven't tested it out yet. Talking of waterproof layers too (which most cloth nappy websites call PUL), it cannot be found in fabric shops anywhere! Arrrgghhh! Most fabric shops hadn't even heard of it. Talking to some other people who use and make cloth nappies, it seems the best place to buy it (and other nappy making goods) is off the net, mostly imported from the states. I tell ya, this is a huge gap in the market and if I was business minded in any way i'd open a cloth nappy materials shop in Melbourne.

This next one is made from old cotton T-shirts and microfleece. It isn't waterproof as such but the microfleece stops most moisture coming through. I've used it a few times and it fits well and works a dream too. When I get some time, I want to make a few more of this type.

The next one is a pocket nappy. I made it with microfleece and a vinyl. I had in mind to stuff it with any booster of bamboo, hemp, cotton or flannel etc. I've only tried it once so far with a cotton booster and it leaked. So i'm not sure if it was the booster or the nappy design. I'll give it another go with a different material booster.

I had a heap of old cotton T-shirts and old flannette sheets, so I made a few boosters/soakers too. They work pretty well but I don't think they're as absorbent as bamboo or some other more 'fluffy' materials.