Homebirth Australia Conference Challenging the Boundaries 19-21 August 2011

Registrations NOW CLOSED

Conference sponsorship packages available - click here for more details.

The 2011 Homebirth Australia conference will be held in Newcastle, NSW on 19-21 August.
Newcastle City Hall, 290 King St, Newcastle.

Purchase Tickets Online Now - please download and fill out the registration form after purchase and return to the details on the form. Payment can be made by direct debit, cheque or paypal. Direct debit is preferred. Please send your completed registration form to Homebirth Australia, 1/37 Wyuna Ave, Freshwater 2096.

The 27th Homebirth Conference - Challenging the Boundaries is for midwives, midwifery students, doulas, women, men and doctors interested in homebirth. Homebirth itself brings about challenges for women and the midwives and doulas who support these women, particularly those who don’t fit within the medicalised definition of normal. All our speakers are passionate about homebirth and the right of women to choose to birth at home, particularly when they are outside the boundaries of normal.

We have speakers from the midwifery and medical profession, as well as consumers, doulas and birth advocates.

Sponsored by

Keynote Speakers - Robbie Davis-Floyd & Ina May Gaskin

Robbie Davis-Floyd - PhD, Senior Research Fellow, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Texas Austin, and Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology, is a medical anthropologist specializing in the anthropology of reproduction. An international speaker and researcher, author of over 80 articles and coeditor of ten collections.    Her research on global trends and transformations in childbirth, obstetrics, and midwifery is ongoing. Robbie currently serves as Editor for the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative (www.imbci.org) and member of the Board of the International MotherBaby Childbirth. Robbie has appeared in many documentaries including the Business of Being Born and Orgasmic Birth. For more information on Robbie visit her website - www.davis-floyd.com

Ina May Gaskin - MA, CPM, is founder and director of the Farm Midwifery Center, located near Summertown, Tennessee. Founded in 1971, by 1996, the Farm Midwifery Center had handled more than 2600 births, with remarkably good outcomes. Ms. Gaskin herself has attended more than 1200 births. She is author of Spiritual Midwifery, now in its fourth edition. The Gaskin maneuver is the first obstetrical procedure to be named for a midwife. For more information on Ina May Gaskin visit her website - www.inamay.com

Download the Conference Program and Registration Form here. [PDF]

Workshops
Workshops are available only with conference tickets.
Friday Morning 10am -12pm  19/8/11
Birth across Cultures: An Evolutionary Perspective with Robbie Davis-Floyd
This workshop presents a broad overview of the human cultural evolution and midwives' role in that process. We explore cross-cultural birth practices in all 6 types of human subsistence strategies (hunting-gathering, horticulture, agriculture, pastoralism, industrial society, and the technocracy), noting premodern similarities across vast cultural differences and examining the homogenizing effects of modernization. In the afternoon we will look at postmodern midwives as they struggle to define their identities and roles in a rapidly changing world.

Variations of Normal with Lisa Barrett.
Interactive talk and discussion on common  variations of normal birth. Using great pictures, grand explanations and lots of personal experience.
The what, why, where and when.  All you need to know on:
Face presentation
Brow presentation
Breech presentation
Twin birth

Natural pain management and the Doula with Renee Adair
In this two hour workshop Renee will explore the role of the support person as a natural pain management tool. Renee will discuss the art of distraction and what natural therapies we can offer as Doulas and support people to women in childbirth. This will be an interactive, informative and fun session!

Friday Afternoon 1pm - 2.30pm  19/8/11
Daughter of Time: The Postmodern Midwife with Robbie Davis-Floyd
In this presentation, I describe "the postmodern midwife" as one who takes an informed and relativistic approach to different ways of knowing about birth and who can invent ways to make discrepant systems complementary. Recognizing the limitations and strengths of the biomedical system and of her own, the postmodern midwife moves fluidly between them to serve the women she attends. She is a shape-shifter--she knows how to work to change the medical system while appearing to comply with it; a bridge-builder, making alliances with biomedicine where possible and building connections between traditional and professional midwives; and a networker. When possible she attends conferences and meetings, making connections with other midwives in other parts of the world, increasing her ability to translate between systems, and gaining consciousness of midwifery as a global movement. Through her interlinkages with other midwives around the world, she works to create a global and increasingly shared culture of midwifery as well as to preserve, carry forward, and teach to others in her own and other cultures the best of her own cultural traditions around birth.

The Hour after Birth with Sarah Buckley
Sarah explores the transition for both mother and baby after birth, including body, brain and hormones
Topics include
Hormonal adaptations for mother and baby after birth
Mother’s transitional physiology
Natural prevention of postpartum haemorrhage
Newborn transitional physiology
Early vs. delayed cord clamping
Cord blood banking
Critiques of the “active management of third stage”
Recommendations for optimal transition for mother and baby

Helping People Out of Tight Spots: A workshop to explore current trends in midwifery mental health matters with Maggie Lecky-Thompson.
A good birth is therapeutic for all women and their families. It can make dramatic shifts to wellness for women who suffer from a mental health disorder. It lays the foundation for sound attachment, not only for the baby and mother but also for their partner and families and all their community members. A good birth experience has a ripple effect on all who come within its sphere, especially when it takes place outside of an institution.

A less than desirable pregnancy, birth and outcome have the potential for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Other forms of mental illness and signs of dysfunction may present as low self-esteem, anxiety and depression, early weaning, chosen early return to work, poor attachment becomes evident in the child’s functioning. A course is set for motherhood that is diminished, limited and sad. Healing might be sought/offered by medication and strategies that will help this unit to function positively. These methods are sometimes effective, however the greatest reversals of this pattern are achieved by a rewarding future birth.

Should we and can we justify building a mental health assessment into midwifery practices? What resources can we offer women who are at risk of mental health concerns? How can we recognise symptoms if the woman does not choose to disclose her mental health history?

How will midwives prepare themselves and their clients when there is a background of Child Sexual Assault? Or Bipolar disorder? Or Borderline Personality Disorder?

We will explore these questions and various scenarios regarding maternal mental health from independent midwives practices. Come with your experiences and vulnerabilities!

Friday Afternoon 3pm - 4.30pm  19/8/11

Helping People out of Tight Spots with Maggie Lecky-Thompson
SOLD OUT

Homebirth Emergencies: The Trouble with Transport with Robbie Davis-Floyd
In this presentation, I focus on the differences between the cultures of obstetrics and home birth midwifery. Although physicians are taught that effective communication requires that they consider the cultural orientations of their patients, this teaching almost never includes the orientations of non-medical practitioners like home birth midwives (and their clients). These differences become most salient and in need of careful, culturally sensitive communication in the encounters that take place between midwives who are transporting a client from home to hospital during an emergency and the obstetrical practitioners—physicians, nurse-midwives, and nurses—who receive that patient. This talk analyzes such encounters through the lens provided by the transport stories American midwives and physicians tell. These stories refract the communication difficulties that can result when the usually quite separate cultural systems of obstetrics and home birth midwifery are brought face to face. The trouble may start with the arrival of the EMTs at the home or upon arrival at the hospital, when the midwives try to explain the client’s labor history, the reasons for the transport, and the course of action they recommend. The articulation, or lack of it, between what the midwives say and what the hospital practitioners hear and are willing to do about it often has dramatic effects on the outcome of the birth. I analyze these encounters along a spectrum of cross-cultural communicative possibilities, from fractured to smooth and even seamless articulations between home birth midwives and medical personnel.

Moving Beyond the Boundaries of the Seen World. Drumming During Pregnancy and for Labour With Jane Hardwick Collings
Drumming is an ancient shamanic technique used cross-culturally for healing, harmonising and journeying within. During pregnancy, shamanic drum journeying is a wonderful technique that can be used to help the mother connect with her baby within, as well as her womb, vagina and vulva. So often women feel disconnected and this process helps work toward healing or dealing with whatever it is that blocks that connection. When used in labour drumming can, through single pointed focus, help transport a woman into the altered state of consciousness that best facilitates labour and birth. I will share stories, giving women’s accounts of their experience of shamanic drum journeys during pregnancy and drumming during labour.

Workshops Full Day $80.00

One Workshop $30.00

Two Workshops $60.00

Please indicate on your registration form the workshop you wish to book for. Workshops are available only with conference tickets.

Conference Program

Saturday, 20 August     
8.00 Registration
9.00 Welcome and Housekeeping
9.10 Welcome to Country and Opening Ceremony
9.30 Keynote Speaker -Robbie Davis- Floyd - Mainstreaming Midwives
11.00 Morning Tea
11.30 Lisa Barrett - Pre-Term birth at home
12.00 Sarah Buckley - Challenging the Boundaries of Birth Science
12.45 Abbey Rodda - The Birth of a Midwife
1.00 Lunch
2.00 Keynote Speaker - Ina May Gaskin
3.00 Gaye Demanuelle & Kusum Churcher-Wells - Love & Fear
3.20 Afternoon Tea
3.50 Tribute to Dr John Stevenson
4.00 VBAC Hour - Chloe Coulthard, Don Sillence, Meg Fraser & Amber Janowicz
5.00 Close
7.30 Conference Dinner and Show

Sunday 21 August
8.00 Recovery Coffee & Tea
9.00 Welcome
9.05 Keynote Speaker - Robbie Davis- Floyd -Renegade Midwives
10.00 Chrissy Grainger - Regional Boundaries
10.20 Morning Tea
10.50 Sue Cookson - Twins, The Art of Birthing Two
11.35  Gary Caganoff - Born in a Bucket
12.00 Breech Panel
12.45 Lunch
1.45 Hospital Homebirth Forum - Belmont, St George, Christine Catling- Paull, Jane Palmer
2.30 Keynote Speaker - Ina May Gaskin
3.30 Raffles
3.35 Closing Ceremony - Jane Collings
4.00 Close

Conference Registration $440.00 From 1/6/2011
Student Consumer $400.00 From 1/6/2011
Conference Dinner $80.00
Workshops Full Day $80.00
One Workshop $30.00
Two Workshops $60.00

If you need assistance with your purchase please contact Chris Wrightson cdwrightson@gmail.com

For everyone with a passion for homebirth; midwives, doulas, mothers, families, students. 

For accommodation options, please visit the accommodation details page here.

If you are able to assist with promoting the conference by putting a poster, flyer or postcards up in your community, please contact Sonja MacGregor

Join the Facebook Group for the Conference here.

Cancellation Policy: Please notify Chris Wrighton at homebirthaustralia@gmail.com. There is a $50 fee for cancellation before 31st May 2011. There is a $100 fee after 31st May 2011.

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