Midwifery Group Practice
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Midwifery continuity of care is the evidence-based, gold standard of care for mothers and babies.
Midwifery Group Practice is a continuity of care model where your care is provided by a small team of midwives who are on call for you throughout your pregnancy, birth, and the postnatal period. You will have a primary midwife who you will see for the majority of your care but will also meet the other midwives in the group along the way. In MGP, we view pregnancy and childbirth as normal, natural life events and provide care that reflects this philosophy. With MGP you are able to choose where you would prefer to give birth, either in our Birth Unit, Birth Centre or in your own home.
Between 2024-2025 RHW MGP cared for 863 families. Of these families:
- 55% were women having their first baby
- 14 women were pregnant with twins
- 67% of women went into labour spontaneously, and 25% had their labour induced
- 62% had a normal vaginal birth, with 11 women having a vaginal breech birth
- 14% had an instrumental assisted birth, and 22% had a caesarean birth
- 92% had immediate skin to skin at birth
- 89% of women breastfed their babies at birth
- The biggest baby born weighed 5070g, and the smallest baby born weighed 2215g
- Women are more likely to have a normal vaginal birth
- Women are less likely to need medical intervention
- Babies are more likely to be born healthy and at full-term
- Women are more likely to breastfeed
- Women are more likely to have a positive experience of labour and birth and to be satisfied with their care
Although the Royal Hospital for Woman offers the largest number of MGP places in Australia, places are still limited. For this reason, we will only recruit women in the RHW area and prioritise women who wish to have homebirth or low-intervention birth. If any complications arise in your pregnancy MGP midwives work with a number of specialists within the hospital to support your pregnancy. As you will receive care in your home after your baby is born, early discharge home from hospital is encouraged if appropriate.
If you are assigned to a midwife within MGP you will be contacted at around 10 weeks into pregnancy to confirm and ensure you are appropriate for the program.
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Publicly funded homebirth is available to women who meet criteria and are receiving their pregnancy care within the Midwifery Group Practice program.
We are one of only six hospitals in NSW that offer publicly funded homebirth for families. Large systematic reviews have confirmed the safety of homebirth for healthy women and their babies, even if having their first baby (Scarf et al, 2018).
A study completed within the Royal Hospital for Women which compared low risk women birthing within their home and low risk women birthing within the hospital showed women who gave birth at home were:
- More likely to have a normal vaginal birth
- Less likely to have perineal tearing
- Less likely to experience intervention in labour and birth
- Less likely to need a caesarean birth
- Less likely to have significant bleeding after birth
In the study 88% of women who birthed in their home had a normal vaginal birth (Sidery et al. 2025)
Please let your midwife know as early as possible into your pregnancy if you would like to know more about homebirth.