I think that a lot of the drama that women trying to register unassisted births happens because we put up with it. I have been involved with advocating for women trying to register their babies born at home without medical assistance for years.

As they were being given such a huge run around I decided to take personal action and contacted the manager of the registrations section, at that time Bronwyn Hanson, who subsequently opened a folder specifically for these women and advised me to get these families to contact her directly.

This was a great system for a few years as families got their births processed quickly and without fuss. They had to supply two stat decs (if possible) from people who had witnessed the birth and that was it.

Unfortunately recently when I directed a woman to take this course of action it was discovered that Bronwyn Hanson had left that posistion and once again whoever had taken her place seemed to be at a loss as to how best get documentation of the existence of a live baby to this mother. They crazily got her to get letters from neighbours, as many stat decs as possible and photographs of her pregnant and with baby.... why I ask when a stat dec is a legal document?

I recommend that women trying to register their babies avoid call centre staff and ask to be put through to the manager immediately. There has been a precedent set as to how they should be treated and the process they should be asked to follow to register their baby.

They should ask for no more than 2 stat decs to verify the birth and if they do ask for more it can  be clearly stated that many women who have had unassisted births over the last few years have only had to supply the above.

The number of different stories (and unfortunately abusive comments) families were getting when they called the standard number and spoke to call centre staff would have made a great comedy skit about bureaucracy.

I think a lot of people have trouble wrapping their head around homebirth let alone birthing without medical assistance (be that with or without "lay" assistance) by choice.  Call centre staff would make comments such as: "So you gave birth by accident at home, are you OK, do you want me to call an ambulance?". And of course they find it most difficult to understand why women wouldn't want to take their perfectly bonny healthy babies to a doctor just to get a form signed.

I understand as I didn't see a doctor for either of my last two pregnancies and birthed at home without medical assistance. I objected to paying a doctor to sign a form just to make it easier for the bureacracy to neatly process us.