We offer you this choice if there are no identified clinical risk factors. A midwife will be the lead professional and she will deliver all your antenatal care in the community, mostly in community clinics with an occasional visit in your home. Sometimes the Midwife may share your care with your General Practitioner (GP) although many GP's no longer offer appointments in pregnancy. We support a women's right to choose where to have her baby and this is reflected in our higher than average home birth rate. However, if clinical complications arise, we will involve an obstetrician to review your care which will involve a consultation with the obstetric team at the hospital.
Women booken for MLC have the choice of giving birth at home, at the Gilchrist Birthing Unit or on Brook Ward at the Ipswich Hospital.
The Gilchrist Maternity Unit at Eye is a midwife-led birthing unit offering the choice of low intervention care in labour. Midwives staff the unit on an on-call basis similary to the home birth service.
Your midwife takes responsibility and is accountable for the organisation and delivery of your care during the antenatal, labour and postnatal periods, caring for you for a minimum of 10 days in the community following birth.