Dr Valerie Slavin
A Decade of Bringing Birth Trauma into the Light
Dr Valerie Slavin
Associate Professor of Midwifery, Griffith University and Gold Coast Health
Over the past decade, I have had the privilege of working across research, service improvement and consumer partnership initiatives focused on improving maternity care for women and their families. As a clinician-researcher and maternity care leader, I have witnessed a significant shift in how birth trauma is understood and discussed across Australian healthcare.
A Changing Conversation About Birth Trauma
When I began my career in maternity care, success was often measured primarily through clinical outcomes. While healthy mothers and babies remain fundamental to maternity care, we now recognise that this is only part of the story. A woman’s experience of birth, including her sense of safety, dignity, autonomy and respect, matters just as much.
Over the past 10 years, awareness has grown of the profound physical and psychological impacts that childbirth can have on women and families. Conversations that were once rarely heard are now taking place more openly in clinical settings, research programs and health service leadership forums.
Birth Trauma Australia has played an important role in bringing birth trauma into the national conversation. By amplifying the voices of women and families, the organisation has challenged long-held assumptions about what constitutes quality maternity care and encouraged health services to listen more closely to lived experience.
A growing concern for Australian maternity care is that intervention rates continue to rise, without corresponding improvements in perinatal outcomes. At the same time, our health systems remain largely focused on what happens during labour and birth, with less attention given to the physical and psychological consequences that can emerge in the weeks, months and even years afterwards.
If we do not routinely identify and measure birth-related trauma, we cannot fully understand its impact or provide the support women and families need.
Partnering for Change
One of the most rewarding aspects of the past decade has been working alongside Birth Trauma Australia and learning from the lived experiences of women and families.
I am particularly grateful for the ongoing partnership and support of Birth Trauma Australia’s CEO, Amy Dawes, whose advocacy has helped keep women’s experiences at the centre of conversations about maternity care. Through her role on our Women+ Voices Consumer Advisory Group, Amy has consistently contributed to service design, quality improvement and research.
Her contribution has helped shape meaningful change across Gold Coast maternity initiatives and strengthened our commitment to embedding consumer voices in maternity care reform.
Importantly, this partnership has helped us move beyond awareness into action.
Through our work with Birth Trauma Australia, Gold Coast maternity services have committed to routinely screening women for birth-related trauma at six weeks and six months following birth. We are also exploring opportunities to identify women who may be at risk during pregnancy and in the immediate period following birth, creating pathways for earlier support and intervention.
Alongside this, we are examining primary prevention strategies and evidence-based interventions that may reduce the incidence and impact of birth trauma before it occurs.
“Some of the most important outcomes of childbirth are often the least visible. Birth trauma can affect women long after they leave our maternity services, which is why listening, measuring and responding to women’s experiences must become a routine part of care.” Dr Valerie Slavin
Hopes for the Future
My hope for the next decade is that every woman’s experience of birth is valued as highly as her clinical outcomes, and that birth trauma is recognised, measured and actively prevented wherever possible.
I would like to see routine screening, early identification, integrated physical and psychological support, and greater investment in prevention become standard practice across Australian maternity services.
I am also encouraged by the contribution that Birth Trauma Australia’s national report, The Cost of Birth Trauma in Australia, can make to demonstrating the true impact and widespread costs of birth trauma across the country. By capturing the voices and experiences of women and families, the report provides important evidence for policymakers, health services and researchers seeking meaningful, system-wide change.
The challenge now is to ensure that greater awareness translates into sustained action and better care for Australian women and families.
Congratulations to Birth Trauma Australia on this remarkable milestone. It has been a privilege to work alongside you, and I look forward to the changes we can continue to achieve together over the decade ahead.
Dr Valerie Slavin
Associate Professor of Midwifery (Conjoint Appointment, Griffith University and Gold Coast Health)
