Does Australia's Health Policy Environment Create Unintended Outcomes for Birthing Women?

Abstract

Several health policy reforms in Australia over the past20 years have directly and indirectly affected the use ofmaternity care services. Specifically, recent reformshave increased access to obstetric and complementarymedicine services—defined here as a range of healthservices not commonly included in conventional medi-cine practice—irrespective of health status or need.Additionally, a number of recent policy changes pur-ported to increase access to midwifery services havehad the opposite effect of restricting access to theseservices. Existing Australian maternity and health poli-cies may be directing pregnant women toward engagingwith care providers and services that are not necessarilysupported by contemporary evidence. In this commen-tary, we explore recent changes in the health policyand legislative environment in Australia, and theirinfluence on changing trends in maternity care.