A study published this week in the international obstetrics and gynaecology journal BJOG has raised concerns among women due to give birth in Australia’s public hospitals.
The study compared the outcomes of mothers and babies, as well as the costs, of standard public maternity care versus private obstetric-led care from 2016 to 2019 in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.
It found women who gave birth in the public system were more likely to haemorrhage, sustain a third or fourth degree tear, and were less likely to have a caesarean than those who birthed in the private system. It found their babies were more likely to be deprived of oxygen, to be admitted to intensive care and to die.
