Standing up for Home Birth - yet again with Katelyn Commerford

Katelyn Commerford is a busy mum to three young children, a doula, a Next Birth After Caesarean (NBAC) guide, co-host of the Australian VBAC Stories podcast. And if that wasn't enough, she's also the President of Homebirth NSW and the Co-ordinator of Homebirth Australia, and it's in this capacity that she speaks with us today.

Homebirth with registered midwives has never been widely available to Australian mothers. The restrictions on their ability to practise (e.g. VBAC, twins and breech births), the need to have a second midwife at the birth, the decades of lack of intrapartum insurance, the need for homebirth midwives to also go through an additional qualification of becoming Endorsed midwives (which also includes a further 5000 hours of practice) means we have a small (and diminishing) number of homebirth midwives women can call on - especially in rural and regional areas.

And now, the Nurses and Midwives Board of Australia are proposing yet more regulations that will restrict women's access to midwives. The main issues are that the second midwife at a birth now also needs to have the same insurance as the primary midwife and for that, she needs to be an Endorsed midwife. And without a second midwife, the primary midwife can't attend the birth. This is particularly difficult for rural and regional midwives who often rely on hospital midwives as their second midwife and until now haven't needed these extra qualiification or insurances.

However! We can have our concerns made known and thankfully Katelyn and her team have made things a little easier for us. NOTE: we need to make our submissions by THIS FRIDAY 5 JUNE 2026.

The NMBA's process for receiving feedback is characteristically not straightforward, but in the last 20 mins or so after discussing the issues, we go into the detail of how to make your concerns known in the easiest way possible.

Get someone to hold the baby for 15 mins, open your laptop and open these documents. Follow the instructions from the top of page two of both documents. NOTE - there are two submissions to be made. Yes, it's a pain, but with Katelyn's help, it won't take long.

Go to: https://www.homebirthaustralia.org/nmba-public-consultation.html
Scroll down to the TWO SUBMISSION TEMPLATES:
https://www.homebirthaustralia.org/sqg.html
https://www.homebirthaustralia.org/endorsement.html

You can email your submissions or fill them in online at the NMBA website. Remember - get them in by 5 June 2026. And if you're a few days late, email them in anyway.

Thanks Katelyn and the HBA team for your wonderful work!

Katelyn can also be found at @katelyn.doulaandnbac on Instagram and https://www.katelynthedoula.com.au/

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