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Maternity Services in New Zealand

New Zealand women and their families/whanau have access to personal, practical and professional care from midwives from early pregnancy right through until four to six weeks after the baby’s birth. This care is free and is available to all women throughout New Zealand who meet the Ministry of Health eligibility criteria. To find out if you meet this criteria, click here.

Pregnant women are required to choose a Lead Maternity Carer (LMC) who coordinates their maternity care. Most women and their families (over 75%) choose a midwife as their LMC. These LMC midwives work with their midwife partners and the midwives who are employed to work in maternity units.

New Zealand midwives work in a partnership model of care with women. In this model each woman and her midwife are partners, working together to ensure that the woman has care that best meets her individual needs.

The woman and the midwife get to know each other well over the whole maternity experience, building a relationship of trust with each other, sharing information and decision-making and recognising the active role that both play in the woman’s maternity care.

The building of relationships between midwives and women during pregnancy contributes to many women’s sense of security in labour. Women are discovering that the safest places to give birth are at home or in a birthing centre. Only a few women actually need to give birth in hospital because of complications. Women are most likely to labour best in a place where they feel free, safe and private, with midwives whom they know and trust. For most women this will be at home or in a birthing centre where they can be in control of who is there and what happens.

Midwives care is founded on respect for normal pregnancy and birth as healthy processes and profound events in a woman’s life and that of her family. Women and their families are finding out that they can benefit from the care of a midwife. They are learning that pregnancy and childbirth are normal, healthy processes, not illnesses. We know that midwifery care results in less chance of complications, fewer interventions, and healthier births for themselves and their babies.

Women who birth in hospitals will also have care from the hospital-employed midwives who provide the 24-hour in-hospital midwifery care in partnership with women and/or their Lead Maternity Carer (LMC) midwives. Women, who have or develop medical or obstetric conditions that require the ongoing involvement of an obstetrician, still require a midwife. A hospital-employed midwife or an LMC midwife can provide this midwifery care.

For more information on maternity services in New Zealand and services available to you, ring 0800 MUM 2 BE (0800 686 223).

Health Services in New Zealand - Consumer Rights

As a user of health services in New Zealand you have certain rights. These are set out in the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights. This Code became law on 1 July 1996 as a regulation under the Health and Disability Commissioner Act. It confers a number of rights on all consumers of health and disability services in New Zealand and places corresponding obligations to providers of those services.

The obligation under the Code is to take "resonable actions in the circumstances to give effect to the rights and comply with the duties” in the Code.

The rights of consumers and the duties of providers are as follows:

• the right to be treated with respect
• the right to freedom from discrimination, coercion, harassment and exploitation
• the right to dignity and independence
• the right to services of an appropriate standard
• the right to effective communication
• the right to be fully informed
• the right to make an infrmed choice and give informed consent
• the right to support
• rights in respect of teaching or research
• the right to complain

For more information about the Health and Disability Commissioner and the complaints process see the Health and Disability Commissioner web site.

New Zealand College of Midwives Resolution Process

The NZCOM offers a resolution process if you are not happy with the care you have received from your midwife. Resolution Committees have been established in each NZCOM region to offer a point of first contact for women who wish to discuss concerns they have about their midwifery care and to help make the process of resolving concerns and questions easier. For further information on the Resolution process or to contact the Resolution Committee in your area, click here.

This article was reproduced with kind permission from the New Zealand College of Midwives.