Universities, health services and government need to increase midwifery student numbers by two per cent, with quarantined places for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander midwifery students, the report authors say. They add that students also need to be better supported during clinical placements.

Nichole says the growing administrative demands on midwives means that not only do experienced midwives have less face-to-face time with women, but they also have less time to spend with midwifery students on placements.

“When everything is actually being done behind a computer screen, and we don’t have the time to spend with women, we are also not able to support our junior staff, our ‘baby midwives’, as much as we would like.”

Support conditions and career pathways in midwifery workforce Improved working conditions and career pathways all need to be addressed, the report notes.

“We have a very junior-heavy workforce because senior midwives don’t want to stay,” says Amanda.

“They are just quite burnt out with the acuity of the kind of presentations that we are seeing now. The birthrate might be falling, but the acuity is rising, with more complications because of the increased average age of mothers.

“And we have more mums with comorbidities and complications, as well as a lot of anxiety that we need to care for.

“The workload is too high. It is extremely rare to have a ratio of three women to one midwife, but when we do, we enjoy our work because we can provide the kind of really good care we are supposed to provide.

“But that doesn’t happen often: we usually care for four to five women, sometimes higher. And if you’ve got five women and five babies you’ve basically got ten patients.

“The pay issue is definitely an issue. We resuscitate newborns on a regular basis, and we get paid less that someone who paints houses,” says Amanda.

“Women’s and babies’ lives are in our hands, and we don’t get recognised or valued for that.”