And yet, here we are. While some births are scheduled because they need to be induced or will be a caesarean section, natural births will happen when they decide to happen.
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Labour can also be very noticeable and long for most, while for others this part of the experience can be remarkably short (the first stage might even go completely unnoticed). In the majority of cases it is also shorter for the second and subsequent children.
BabyCentre says that in Australia, about one baby in 250 arrives suddenly (a precipitate, or fast, labour), which they define as less than three hours (anecdotally, the leader of the team I work in had her second child in 45 minutes, while her first was still shorter than most at 4.5 hours). A bit of rough math says that must be around 1200 fast labours per year in Australia.
Here's the problem though. You're not meant to just show up to any public hospital to give birth. You have to make the choice between staying where you are (hopefully home), calling an ambulance (after deciding if the situation justifies it, and then hoping they have a crew available), or being driven by a loved one to the nearest hospital that not only has a maternity wing, but also the staff to keep that wing open.
That means it's very important to check what your location options are as the expected date draws nearer, whether that applies 24 hours, and you possibly need to check again that they haven't suddenly closed on you.
Parkes in NSW for example, got a you beaut new hospital in 2015 costing $72 million. It included a modern maternity facility, but four years later the birthing service had to close due to an inability to recruit enough qualified staff. Expectant mothers from the area were then told they need to travel to Forbes, Orange or Dubbo instead.
Griffith Hospital says they've come close to sending women two hours away due to a lack of nurses, which really emphasises the need to double-check what your options are.
And then there are all the regional hospitals that had their birthing centres closed permanently earlier this century due to budget cuts, which as far as I could see flew in the face of what the Baby Bonus, introduced in 2002, was trying to address (which was a declining birth rate that many recruiters, across all sectors, are now seeing the effects of with insufficient young adults to replace the hordes of retiring boomers).
Here's a conundrum for you though. Is speeding acceptable in these circumstances?
Because speeding in public is dangerous and potentially lethal for various reasons, but giving birth on your own can be too. Some babies also need resuscitation immediately after birth, so the process is potentially life-threatening to them too.
Yass closed maternity in 2004, and in the 2020s the union deemed it necessary to close some general beds due to short-staffing. But in 2020 when Alicia Payne, member for Canberra (then and now), addressed the prime minister of the time with the question, "Women from the Yass Valley are currently forced to travel an hour to Canberra or Goulburn to give birth. As a result, a number of women have been forced to give birth on the side of the Barton Highway. Does the Prime Minister agree that this is unacceptable?", the response was they were already contributing funding towards the Barton Highway upgrade (which runs from Yass to the ACT).
An attitude like that may partly explain why he isn't the prime minister any more, but it's also worth remembering that it is the states and territories who provide health care facilities. The federal government's role is to allocate funding that helps them achieve this (as they do with certain road projects).
As offensive as the response was, the underlying idea of improving roads is the travel time will be shorter. So if the highway hasn't been upgraded, is that a justification for speeding (despite the fact that any road in need of upgrades and bypasses is probably also more dangerous to drive fast on)?
I'm certainly not suggesting you break the rules on the way to maternity. I'm saying that it's an unacceptable conundrum which regional mums are forced into by governments who recognise we need more babies and yet fail to make it easy for them to bring those babies into the world safely.
