New Midwife Antenatal and Postnatal Service
The Midwife Antenatal and Postnatal Service (MAPS) at Armadale Hospital is a continuity of care model aiming to provide a named midwife for each pregnant patient to deliver all hospital antenatal care and postnatal home visiting for five days. As of February 2025, women can request to be allocated to MAPS at antenatal booking or request the general midwifery clinic. If a woman develops a condition that requires specialist care, they can stay in the program as long as they do not require referral to a tertiary hospital.
Arrival of Rhesus D NIPT testing
As many GPs will be aware, Rhesus negative women can now have the blood group of their baby tested between 20 and 32 weeks’ gestation so that prophylactic anti-D can be directed only to those mothers who need it. At Armadale Hospital, this will be discussed and offered by the midwives at the first visit so that it will be known whether anti-D is needed by the time they are seen in the GP clinic at 28 weeks. Read the February GP Connect Clinical Feature for more information on Rhesus D Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (RHD NIPT) in WA.
RSV vaccination in pregnancy
In February this year, Armadale Hospital started to offer maternal RSV vaccine Abrysvo to pregnant women at their 28-week visit. This can currently be given from 28 weeks to 36 weeks. As the dTpa vaccine can be given earlier and the influenza vaccines at any time, GPs can help to minimise the number of injections given at one time by offering those vaccines early in the pregnancy.
Considering the Abrysvo vaccine is relatively new, we may encounter some mothers who are uncertain about receiving it and want to take some time to think about it. In such cases, we will suggest that if they need more time to decide, they can arrange to receive the vaccine with their GP between visits.
If you do give Abrysvo in the practice, please record the date and gestation that it was given so that we can determine which infants should be offered the Beyfortus (nirsevimab). For infants to be covered, and therefore not requiring Beyfortus, the mother needs to have been given Abrysvo at least two weeks prior to birth. There are some exceptions and high-risk babies who will be offered it regardless of maternal vaccination.
Patients requesting female practitioners in public maternity care
In the maternity unit at Armadale Hospital, we have been experiencing a significant increase in the number of patients who request that only female practitioners be involved in their care.
As a public hospital with staff employed on a rostered basis it is not possible to guarantee this. We appreciate the help of GPs, who are usually the first to see patients in their pregnancy, in managing patients’ expectations around this.
The maternity unit works hard to offer good, respectful, holistic antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal care to patients, including use of interpreters if needed but resources are not available to offer a female practitioner when one is not rostered on duty.
Dr Anne Lewis
Hospital Liaison GP, Armadale Kalamunda Group
Ann.lewis@health.wa.gov.au
0428711003