Maternity Care Sustainability in Rural Australia

Introduction: In recent years there has seen significant closure of small maternity units particularly in rural regions of Australia. Those small maternity units that do continue to care for childbearing women may only provide antenatal and postnatal care with women giving birth in a larger maternity unit often some distance away. There are some small maternity units that continue to provide complete care to childbearing women which is the focus of this research. The issue here is that these small rural maternity units tend to only cater for women who are having a low-risk pregnancy. When the women is deemed ‘high risk’ they will need to transfer to a larger maternity unit for their ongoing antenatal visits and to birth. These larger maternity units are often some distance away requiring women to travel for each antenatal care visit and for birth. This research aims to explore women’s experience of having to transfer their care to a larger maternity unit due to being deemed at risk through interview of 40 women deemed at risk. Methods: Focus of the research was women’s experiences of needing to transfer their maternity care and used a qualitative descriptive phenomenology approach. To date seven women have been interviewed. Results: This paper presents the preliminary findings from the interviews that have been undertaken to date on seven women. The data is presented under emerging themes which will be refined with further interviews. The emerging themes are ‘women had no agency’, ‘the hidden cost’ and ‘the journey continues’. Conclusion: The paper presents the preliminary findings from these interviews. Ultimately the aim is to assess how care can be improved for these women and potential options/models of care and make these small rural maternity units sustainable.