Vision and Mission

Childbirth Australia's vision is for woman-centred maternity care to be a reality for all Australian families.

Our vision will be achieved when:

all pregnant women, regardless of social position, are able to be well-informed about optimal childbearing processes and their entitlement to high quality, personalised care;
all pregnant women have their human rights, social needs, and choices of caregivers and birthplace recognised and respected by all health care professionals;
most women, most of the time, to receive continuity of care across the prenatal, birth and postnatal period from known and trusted caregivers;
consulting facilities and birthing spaces are economically and geographically accessible, well-resourced, and offer privacy, dignity and cultural, as well as physical, safety;
childbirth is seen not as an ‘illness’ but as a normal, physical process for well women;
women with complex health needs have those met as an addition not replacement for their primary maternity care;
the promotion of healthy birth options by well-informed consumer advocates is supported by policy-makers, institutions and health professionals; and
caregivers work in partnership with families and in mutually respectful collaboration with each other.

Childbirth Australia's mission is to:

represent the interests of maternity care consumers: women, babies and their families.
underake research and evaluation, develop policy positions and facilitate access to trustworthy and up-to-date information.
bring together a network of consumer and professional organisations for information-sharing and consensus building.

We undertake to:

promote high-quality, equitable and accessible care in pregnancy, labour and birth, wherever women live or whatever their means or cultural background;
enable women to make informed birthing choices by providing unbiased, evidence-based education and information;
bring together a mutually respectful network of individuals and organisations to share research/information sharing and build alliances to improve maternity care;
advocate for informed, resourced and respected consumer participation in policy development, service planning and delivery, as essential to improving the quality and safety of maternity care;
provide an effective training and mentoring program for consumer representatives and service providers in accordance with national quality and safety standards of giving consumers an active voice in their healthcare (see Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare);
promote a process of cultural change in hospitals to improve communication and collaboration between professional caregivers and women and their support-people;
encourage critical and informed debate through researching the experiences of women, their families and health professionals, and dissemination of international and national research findings.