Useful Links

The health sector has identified a range of health workforce development issues: some that already exist and others that are forecast for the future. The Government has established Health Workforce NZ to address those issues. Its aim is to provide a single, coordinated response to improving our ability to train, recruit and retain our health workforce. The ultimate goal is to have the right health workforce personnel, with the best skill-sets, working in the right places, when they are needed.

www.healthworkforce.govt.nz

National Screening Unit

This website has information on who the National Screening Unit are and what we do. You can find out about programmes and services and how to access them by clicking this link.

www.nsu.govt.nz

Maternity Services Consumer Council

The Maternity Services Consumer Council is a consumer-based organisation made up of almost 100 community groups with an interest in the provision of maternity services. Our organisation acknowledges and respects the unique and independent nature of all its member groups.

Membership of the MSCC is free and is open to community groups and individuals with an interest in maternity services.

www.maternity.org.nz

La Leche League

La Leche League provides help and support for breastfeeding mothers.  The organisation also has a wide range of reading material on breastfeeding.  Contact can be made either before or after your baby is born.

www.lalecheleague.org/LLLNZ/

Parents Centres New Zealand Inc

Parents Centres provide antenatal education programmes and support for new parents.  Contact their National Office to see if there is a centre in your area, or look on their website.

www.parentscentre.org.nz

The Royal New Zealand Plunket Society Inc

The Plunket Society provides a range of well child health and family support services including:

• home and clinic visits for health and developmental checks, health information and family support
• parent support groups
• Family Centres for mothers and young children experiencing difficulties.

Contact your nearest Plunket Clinic (in telephone book) for information, or the Plunket website. PlunketLine is a toll free telephone help line offering 24 hour health information and advice for families, parents, and caregivers with newborn babies to five year olds.

0800 933 922

www.plunket.org.nz

Home Birth Aotearoa

Home Birth Aotearoa is the national organisation representing the many local home birth associations throughout Aotearoa / New Zealand.  Home Birth Aotearoa supports and celebrates home birth.  Their website at provides birthing women and whanau with information about the home birth option as well as local association contacts, listings of home birth midwives, home birth stories and pictures, calendar of events and activities and links to many related home birth, pregnancy and parenting sites.

www.homebirth.org.nz

All Mothers Matter

Investing in Health Workers to save lives in fragile states. The international charity Merlin have published its report All Mothers Matter ready for International Day of the Midwife.

White Ribbon Alliance

Every minute of every day, a woman dies of pregnancy related complications, totaling more than one half million women each year.

We are here to change that.

The White Ribbon Alliance is an international coalition bound together by a common goal: to ensure that pregnancy and childbirth are safe for all women and newborns in every country around the world.

www.whiteribbonalliance.org

TABS

Trauma And Birth Stress is a Charitable Trust that serves as a support group of mothers. We have in common stressful and traumatic pregnancies or births that affected our lives negatively for months or years afterwards. We formed TABS because of the need to make PTSD known as a form of mental illness that can happen following childbirth, but quite distinct from the Baby Blues, Post Natal Depression (Post Partum Depression) and Post Natal Psychosis.

www.tabs.org.nz

Health Improvement and Innovation Resource Centre (HIIRC) - a one-stop shop of trusted health information, latest research, and exemplars of best practice
www.hiirc.org.nz

It is a resource to help improve New Zealand’s health care system and includes an extensive Knowledge Library of research literature, directories of individuals and organisations, a range of improvement tools, and the latest news about events and projects.

www.miscarriage.org.nz

This website offers support and information to all women who have experienced a loss at any stage of their pregnancy and for any reason, particularly miscarriage.
It is the strength of the bond with your baby, not the pregnancy length that determines the intensity of your grief.

For those who have someone close that have miscarried, know that miscarriage can be viewed by many as a transient unimportant event. This can and often does invalidate and minimise women’s feelings resulting in disenfranchised grief and can create an overwhelming, lonely and traumatic experience for them.
To support yourself or another click here.