00:00 Well, initially, Ros, this inquiry was triggered by 30 women who made complaints about their
00:06 birth experience at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, which is in southern New South Wales.
00:10 But it's obviously become much broader than this.
00:12 And the issue of birth trauma and the prevalence of it is actually quite hard to quantify.
00:16 But the Australasian Birth Trauma Association says that about one in every three women who
00:21 give birth will have experienced either physical or psychological trauma.
00:24 So that equates to about 10,000 women in New South Wales each year and over 100,000 women
00:30 around the country.
00:31 So obviously, you know, a very large number of women who are potentially affected.
00:35 This inquiry received 4000 submissions and a lot of them are very harrowing reading from
00:40 women talking about what happened to them in one of the most vulnerable moments of their
00:44 lives and the ongoing impact that that has had on them in bonding with their children,
00:49 in learning to be a mother, their confidence, and as well as their relationship with their
00:53 partners.
00:54 There's also many submissions from doctors and midwives themselves talking about the
00:58 way the system is stretched, the policy restrictions that are in place, the legal restrictions
01:02 that are in place that are contributing to this problem.
01:05 And also the impact that it's having on frontline medical workers.
01:08 This afternoon we'll be hearing from the Nurses and Midwives Association and they had a survey
01:11 done where about 90% of their members said they felt that they had been at a birth that
01:15 was potentially traumatic for the mother.
01:17 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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