The Select Committee on Women’s Health received over 2000 submissions!
At last, Australia is having a national conversation about how we can build a real system of postpartum support, and we'd love your support to keep that conversation going.
What's next? Public hearings have already been announced in Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Cairns and Torres Strait within the next six weeks, with more locations and details coming soon.
My submission is number 246 and you can read more submissions as they are published here.
You can read my submission below.
Dear Select Committee,
Thank you for your attention to postpartum. I appreciate the opportunity to share my professional experience supporting thousands of mothers over almost two decades.
I began my career as a postpartum doula in 2008 providing practical, emotional and informational support to mothers in their homes.
Today, I am the founder of an education company called Newborn Mothers and have trained almost 2000 non-medical, postpartum professionals. The training is endorsed by the Australian College of Midwives. This year Newborn Mothers was approved by the International Institute of Complementary Medicine to provide the world’s first Postpartum Education and Care Professional Certification, recognised in over 30 countries.
The non-medical professionals who complete my evidence-based training work within a clearly defined scope of practice and code of ethics making it safe and effective
In my submission I would like to draw your attention to non-medical care and the way it can support breastfeeding and long-term maternal physical and mental health, with benefits for families and communities across generations
Best practice postpartum care includes practical, emotional and social support alongside clinical care. This inquiry opens a window of possibility for Australia to be a world leader in evidence-based, comprehensive postpartum care, so that women can not only survive, but thrive in the transition to motherhood.
I would appreciate the opportunity to share my experience at the public hearing in Perth.
First, I will outline my recommendations, and then explain why I am recommending them and how they would support mothers. Finally I will share existing Australian and international models and practical ideas for how these recommendations could be implemented in Australia.
Recommendations
Postpartum care must come to the mother, at home and in her community.
Postpartum care must be universally accessible, so that everyone receives support after birth.
Postpartum care must include practical, emotional, physical, medical and social support.
Postpartum Literacy
Establish a national postpartum literacy framework grounded in biology and evidence across the physical, social and emotional dimensions of postpartum.
Deliver postpartum information through health and community networks that are responsive to individual families and support parents to feel confident and connected.
Continuity of Care at Home
Provide support to every mother in her home, from a known, trained postpartum
professional.
Financially support family and friends to care for new mothers.
Local Postpartum Villages
Invest in and invigorate existing community infrastructure to create local postpartum hubs that bring health and community services together in one place.
Create ready-made local support networks so mothers don't have to navigate fragmented services or build a village from scratch.
Universal Support Services Package
Bring existing funding streams together into a universal package and close gaps.
Include access to publicly funded services automatically after every birth, for example lactation, sleep, pelvic floor and mental health support.
Defining postpartum
When I encouraged mothers to share their postpartum stories with this inquiry, many mothers replied that they “didn’t have postpartum”. Postpartum care is so neglected in Australia that postpartum has become synonymous with depression. We need to begin by defining what postpartum actually means.
Postpartum is not a niche experience. It impacts every person who gives birth in Australia, shaping our population’s long-term health and wellbeing.
Postpartum is not a medical condition. Matrescence, like adolescence, is an intense but normal phase of human development that changes brains, bodies, relationships and worldviews, and requires support.
Postpartum is much longer than six weeks. Mothers continue to experience physical, hormonal and neurological changes for years, with a 2023 study showing mothers are most likely to report depressive symptoms four years after birth.
Postpartum is not the end of birth, it's the beginning of motherhood.
"The WHO recommendations on postnatal care… are not simply about ensuring women and babies survive; these recommendations aim to support complete physical, mental, emotional and social wellbeing, consistent with the definition of health in the WHO constitution."
Matrescence
In the 1960s anthropologist Dr Dana Raphael completed a PhD on cross-cultural breastfeeding practices, under the mentorship of Margaret Mead. She coined the word matrescence, which is only now beginning to gain wider recognition.
When a baby is born, so is a mother.
But this is not an instant and automatic process, it is a developmental transition that deserves social, cultural and emotional recognition.
We now also have brain research showing mothers experience significant structural, functional and cognitive brain changes that shape identity, behaviour and wellbeing. These normal adaptations are believed to be crucial for physiological health, mental health, breastfeeding and positive parenting.
Postpartum is a unique window of vulnerability and opportunity, making it an ideal time for preventative care.
It takes a village
Everyone has heard the proverb ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ without really considering what a village in the 21st century looks like, or how Australia could practically provide a village to care for all new families.
Whilst it might be easy to dismiss the phrase as outdated or unrealistic, the human need for a village is backed by science, history and lived experience of mothers.
Parenting Today’s recent survey of 10,000 Australian parents found that good mental health is shaped by relational factors and emotional experiences. Their analysis found that the strongest factor associated with psychological distress is loneliness. Physical health is influenced by similar factors, with the strongest factor being the inability to rest and recharge.
Anthropologists and evolutionary biologists agree that human parenting is cooperative, meaning that raising children and the related domestic tasks are a responsibility shared among family, friends and community members
Parents and children thrive in communities where multiple adults are available for emotional and practical support
It’s worth noting that Australian Aboriginal families who still practice cooperative parenting often face systemic barriers and penalties within the foster care system, despite the cultural and emotional benefits.
In her research on hundreds of cultures, Dr Dana Raphael documented a recurring pattern of women receiving practical and emotional support during the transition to motherhood, and coined the word doula. She described the work as “mothering the mother’’ and argued that this support played an important role in breastfeeding success.
This unique postpartum window is known in Germany as Wochenbett (weeks’ bed); in Latin America as la cuarentena (the forty days); and in China as zuò yuèzi (sitting the month). It’s likely my own English ancestors would have been supported through the transition to motherhood by other women known as ‘handywomen’ and ‘gossips.’
Australian mothers are resourceful, and already find innovative ways to support each other. Many mothers start private businesses to fill in gaps, work as volunteers when funding doesn’t exist, and informally support one another with meals and companionship. But the work of “mothering the mother” remains unrecognised, uncompensated and out of reach for so many mothers.
As our understanding of health evolves, it becomes increasingly important to embed proactive care into our communities from the beginning, rather than waiting until a crisis.
Building postpartum literacy
Mothering is a learned skill, but Australia has lost many of the intergenerational and cultural structures through which postpartum knowledge was traditionally shared. Vast information is now available to new families on the internet, but becoming a confident and capable mother is a developmental process that happens within a social context.
Breastfeeding, sleep and mental health are often addressed separately, and can fail to take into account the values and circumstances of individual families. Parents might receive sleep advice that undermines their breastfeeding goals, or breastfeeding advice that does not support their mental wellbeing.
Some information shared with Australian mothers is shaped by social and cultural expectations about how babies should feed and sleep, rather than biologically normal infant behaviour.
Even when a family can access quality information, they might lack practical support to implement what they learn. Telling a mother ‘breast is best’ is not the same as providing practical support so a mother can spend hours every day breastfeeding.
In my work with mothers, I hear about the guilt, shame and sense of failure that mothers can feel when information is inconsistent or inaccurate, or is delivered without continuity of care, practical support and opportunities to learn with and from peers.
Understanding matrescence should form part of postpartum education, and also inform the way we deliver information. Parents are unlikely to book an appointment every time they have a question, and they are more likely to open up to people who they already know and trust. Parenting Today’s recent survey found that 72% of Australian parents turn to friends or other parents for parenting information.
We need to actively rebuild the social networks through which parents learn, share knowledge and support each other. High quality information should be embedded in the places where families are looking: friends, family and community, and provided in ways that support parents to feel confident and connected.
Putting this into practise
Australia already has pockets of excellent postpartum care. This inquiry is an opportunity to learn from what is already working and bring the strongest elements together into a coherent and accessible national system.
Delivering postpartum literacy
Australia has some excellent organisations building postpartum literacy including the Australian Breastfeeding Association, Sids and Kids, The Beyond Sleep Training Project and PANDA. They should be fully funded and not expected to rely on mothers volunteering their time and expertise.
A peak body for postpartum could bring this work together, identify gaps, address misinformation and ensure postpartum information is consistent, evidence-based and biologically informed.
The peak body would develop a national postpartum literacy framework drawing on existing organisations, research into matrescence and lived experience, for both the postpartum care workforce and the wider community.
Delivering Continuity of Care at Home
Australia has the foundations of Medicare-funded midwifery, but this isn’t translating into access. Governments must ensure universal and equitable access to midwifery-led continuity of care, provide sustainable funding and enable midwives to work to their full scope of practice, which includes providing postpartum care at home.
Expanding the postpartum care workforce to include trained non-medical professionals will fill a critical gap and remove barriers to accessing clinical care. Models such as kraamzorg in the Netherlands and publicly funded doula programs in Oregon and Virginia in the United States would serve Australia well.
In Australia we already have trained non-medical Postpartum Education and Care Professionals (sometimes known as doulas) but mothers must pay privately for this support. Some examples of excellent care include The Bond Wellbeing, The Bayside Doula, Phlox Postpartum and Blossom Doula Care.
Find more qualified Postpartum Education and Care Professionals here
Family and friends who would love to care for new mothers during postpartum are often unable, due to financial and work responsibilities. The Australian Government supports child care, aged care, disability care and should also support postpartum care. Expanding the carer’s payment to enable people to care for their loved one for a period during postpartum would provide instant relief to the hundreds of thousands of new mothers in Australia who struggle to find or pay for support every year.
Delivering Local Postpartum Villages
The Government has an opportunity to support the transition to connected and confident motherhood by shifting postpartum care from hospitals into the community. Investment in existing local infrastructure like community centres, libraries and even sporting clubs, could create mother-centred postpartum hubs where professional care, peer support and education can be co-located.
Existing examples of physical spaces include The Village Wellness Centre in Perth, and The Village Collective on the Central Coast, Hygieia House in Northern NSW and Birthing in Our Community hubs in Queensland. Models of peer and group support that could be located in these hubs include Radiance Network South West Inc and Mother-Baby Nurture.
Delivering a Universal Support Services Package
The Government should automatically provide every mother with access to a core package of publicly funded postpartum services after birth, without requiring a diagnosis, referral or assessment. This could include breastfeeding support, physiotherapy and mental health support.
Building flexibility into the package would allow mothers to choose the support they need as their needs change throughout the postpartum period.
Measuring What Matters
We will know postpartum care is working when:
all Australians from school children to grandparents know that postpartum is a normal developmental stage that requires support,
women who do the essential work of caring for mothers are fairly compensated,
and mothers are strong, healthy, confident and connected.
Australia has an opportunity to build a postpartum system that recognises and supports matresence, cares for mothers in their homes and communities, and brings practical, emotional, social and clinical care together.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope Australia will lead the world with universal, accessible and comprehensive postpartum care.
References
Stephanie Brown. The Conversation: Mothers’ mental health worse four years after giving birth. 2023
World Health Organisation. Supporting women, parents and families for a positive postnatal experience: key information for advocates. 2023.
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. 2009.
Parenting Research Centre. Parenting Today: Parent mental health and wellbeing. 2026.
Women’s Brain Health Initiative. Maternal Brain Project. Ongoing.
Dana Raphael. The Tender Gift: Breastfeeding. 1976.
