My Birth — Birth Services Revealed
- Created by
- Mercury Rising (Michelle Meares, Jennifer Brown, Suma Srinivas, Lathesh Suryakantha)
- data.australia.gov.au datasets used
- Other datasets used
Northern Territory Midwives Collection. Mothers and Babies 2005. Department of Health and Families: Darwin, 2009
Centre for Epidemiology and Research. NSW Department of Health. New South Wales Mothers and Babies 2006. NSW Public Health Bull 2007; 18(S-1).
We’ve taken publicly available birth outcome statistical data for individual hospitals and created an Australia wide birth services database showing the intervention rates for individual hospitals (where it is available.) Such as – caesarean section rates/epidural rates/induction rates. These vary enormously between public and private hospitals and carry risks which have significant impacts on the mother and the baby.
Australian women have a right to know what their chances of having a natural birth are at their local hospital so they can make an informed choice. Some States publicly release intervention rate data for each hospital. Some do not. Even if they are released they are often so hard to find on each State’s Health Department website that the majority of women do not even know they exist. Looking at the statistics of a particular maternity service will give a woman great insight into the kind of birth that she could expect if she chooses to birth there.
We have put the data from each State that DOES publicly release the individual hospital statistics into a database and made it searchable by post code or state and service type – for example you can search by public hospital/private hospital/birth centre or independent midwife.
We have setup a Submit Your Service form so that private practice midwives and obstetricians can upload their own service details and statistics as individual care provider statistics are not presented in the current reports.
The creators of this entry clearly mean well, and they’ve pulled in data from interesting new places.
However, the site is too hard to use effectively.
Search is either state or postcode, there’s no mapping or easy way to work out where these hospitals are if you don’t know already.
The information assumes you know what the values they are presenting mean already, and there is no way to compare the hospitals with each other.
In summary, the site has data, but makes it hard to know either what hopital options are, or if they are any good compared to each other.
Thanks for the feedback Adam.
Yes we’d love to be able to show comparative data – so users could select 5 services for example and compare their data and see it visually also in graphs.
For example – There are hospitals with 86% epidural rates and others with 1.5% epidural rates.
We have done this with other apps which also generate PDF/HTML reports of the results so that is something we’d like to integrate in the future when time permits…
We also want to show reports over time and how the stats change as new stats are released each year – so you could see if a service was improving or not.
That’s a good point with the info assuming people know what the values mean. We do have a link to a definitions page at the top of the search results page. But yes, it would definitely be more user friendly to link directly from each term in the results – and also link directly to the related intervention information pages in the menu on the left showing the advantages/disadvantages/risks & alternatives of each.
A brilliant site. I was very impressed. I will use this data for my next birth. Thank you very much.
As the previous comments suggested, a comparison between hospitals would be handy, I certainly would use it.
This is a great service. When i was pregnant with my first child I did manage to locate the mothers and babies report and look up the stats for my local hospitals – but it was not an easy task, and most women don’t even know that information exists. They get told to ask their docs or midwives for their stats, but that is a pretty intimidating thing to have to do.
Women and their families should be able to easily access this information to help them make informed choices. It’s great to see that it can be a “living” website that could track changes (positive and negative) over time – from both the health professionals perspective and the health consumers’ perspective.
I love your website. I love the way it is easy to navigate and quick to use as I am a busy Mum with toddlers constantly on the go. Thank you to all of the creators for putting so much hard work and effort in. I have read through the Mothers and Babies report myself and it is a minefield so double thank you for putting it into an easy to read format. I will definately be recommending the Mybirth website to all of my clients, friends and associates
Lovely work Mercury Rising. The use of available public data is excellent. What your website really shows is how data from many state governments is lacking — it makes one wonder what is being hidden? And who wants it hidden?
Transparency in data collection and provision can only improve maternal outcomes in this country. A wonderful idea and I look forward to watching it evolve over time (and grow as more governments participate).
Thanks, David
This is a fabulous site, what it highlights is that Australian women are not afforded the same information, Victoria rates poorly to NSW and what about QLD. I have since found out all the same statistics are collected but not released publicly. WHY! I heard our Deputy PM, Julia Gillard saying parents needed full and rich information when choosing a school. How can the birth of that child be less important and afforded much less information. Great work and I hope to see a site in the future with consistent stats.
Wonderful work! Australian women and their partners need this information to make informed choices about their birth options. I’m pleased our government sees the need for rich and full information about essential services to be available to the public.
The government can direct the various collectors of information about birthing services and hospital specific outcomes to make that information available for publishing. Fascinating how states are so different.
I look forward to seeing your site grow and develop. I note that you are open to suggestions and willing to improve your site, so you will do well.
Congratulations for providing the solution to a long standing need. Transparency about services is so critical for consumers of health care.
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What a fantastic resource! Finally some evidence that women have the capacity to be consumers instead of “patients” when birthing. Also keeps the hospitals publicly accountable for their practices.