BIRTH CRISIS IN THE BUSH

The health of mothers and babies is being put at risk by regional maternity services that are no longer fit for use.

- SAMANTHA TRENOWETH

Beatrix Bracefield's birth has been the subject of heated discussion - in the Queensland Parliament, in community meeting rooms, around kitchen tables and in supermarket aisles in her hometown of Chinchilla. Born on the side of the Warrego Highway in January 2022, hers was the birthing scenario pregnant women in the district had been dreading since their local hospital had “paused” its birthing service back in 2017.

“The day Beatrix was born started like any other,” her mother, Yvette, a music teacher, tells The Weekly. She woke at 2am and then again at five with some pain.

“I’d had early labour pains on and off for a couple of weeks,” Yvette says. She thought these were no different, but as a precaution moved the appointment with her midwife scheduled for later that day a little earlier.

Yvette organised a sitter for her older girl, Holly, “packed the baby clothes just in case,” and her husband, Michael, drove her to Chinchilla Hospital, which was on a ‘birthing bypass’ but nonetheless providing prenatal care. There, the midwife “took one look at me and said, ‘Oh wow, you’re doing really well’.”

Yvette was quickly sent on her way. The senior nurse’s parting words were something along the lines of: “You’ll make it to Dalby [the nearest town with a functioning maternity unit], but you’d better go now.”

“My midwife asked for the make and colour of our car,” she remembers, “because she was going to follow us. The contractions were about two minutes apart by then, so I couldn't be strapped in. I knelt, facing my seat, with my back to the windshield.” Dalby was an hour away. “I prayed to God the whole time: ‘Please keep me and my baby safe’.”