After your baby arrives
Postnatal Home Visits: Mum, Baby & Feeding
An unhurried visit in your own home in the weeks after birth, looking after your recovery as carefully as your baby, with feeding help in the chair you actually use.
Why at home
Because getting out the door is the hard part
In the first weeks, a ten-minute appointment can cost you two hours and most of your composure. Feeding, changing, parking, the car seat, then doing it all again in reverse. Postnatal home visits bring an endorsed midwife to you instead, to look after your recovery, your baby and feeding in the one visit. This page covers how long a visit runs, what you are likely to pay and what happens between visits.
A visit at home removes that entirely. It also shows a midwife things a clinic never will: where your baby sleeps, the chair you feed in, whether you have eaten today, who else is around to help. Much of what is useful in a postnatal home visit comes from what she can see rather than what you remember to mention.
Visits are planned care. If something is urgent, ring 000, or Healthdirect on 1800 022 222 for registered nurse advice at any hour.
Two people, one visit
Your recovery counts as much as your baby's progress
Postnatal care is often described as if it were only about the baby. It is not, and the mother's half is the half most often skipped.
Looking after you
- How you are healing after the birth, including wound checks where they apply
- Your sleep, your eating and how you are physically holding up
- Your emotional wellbeing, asked about directly rather than skirted around
- A birth debrief covering your pregnancy and labour, if you want one
Looking after your baby
- A full check, written up in your blue book as she goes
- Whether what your baby is doing is ordinary for this age
- A feed, watched rather than only discussed
Postnatal home visits usually run around ninety minutes
Postpartum midwife care is unhurried by design: long enough that nothing is rushed, and long enough for the questions that surface once you have relaxed. Some families want a single visit to settle one thing. Others want a midwife alongside them across several weeks.
There is no set course to sign up for. Postnatal home visits are arranged one at a time, so ask the midwife you contact what she would suggest for your situation, and how far into the postnatal period she visits.
What you are likely to pay
Because every EverNurture midwife is endorsed, eligible families can claim a Medicare rebate on a postnatal visit, and it covers a substantial part of the fee. The rebate applies within a limited window after the birth, and the largest published rebates apply once the Medicare safety net has been reached.
Fees are set practice by practice, so confirm her fee, your eligibility and the gap you would actually pay in the first conversation. That call is where you find out what postnatal care at home costs with her.
You are not left holding it alone
Most midwives are reachable between visits for the question that will not wait until next time. What that looks like varies: her hours, how quickly she usually replies, and what she would rather you did outside them.
Ask her at the first of your postnatal home visits and you will save yourself a fortnight of wondering whether a message is too trivial to send. It rarely is.
Bring in whoever is helping you
Partners, grandparents and anyone else doing the night shifts are welcome to sit in. A great deal of early-weeks tension comes from two people having been told slightly different things, and the simplest cure is for them both to be in the room.
Older children generally carry on as usual. Nobody expects the household to be quiet or tidy.
Shown, not told
The practical things nobody shows you
Preparation for having a baby concentrates almost entirely on the day itself. Then you are home, holding a person who cannot tell you anything, and the actual skills have to be picked up somewhere. This is teaching, not inspection. Asking how to bath a baby is not an admission of anything.
Handling and daily care
- Wrapping, using your own wraps rather than a demonstration blanket
- Nappy changing and bath care
- Reading your baby's cues, so you can tell hungry from tired
Sleep and settling
- Settling techniques, tried on your baby rather than in theory
- Safe sleeping guidelines, checked against where your baby actually sleeps
- Protecting your own rest, which matters more than anyone tells you
Most questions about newborn sleep turn out to be questions about what is normal. Newborn sleep is fragmented by design, and your midwife can tell you where your baby sits against the usual range before talking about what might help. Second and third-time parents ask about it too, often because this baby is behaving nothing like the last one.
When it needs more than a visit
An endorsed midwife holds a qualification beyond registration that lets her prescribe certain medicines, request certain tests and refer you to other health professionals. Practically, that means she has options other than advice: if something needs investigating she can start it, and if it needs someone else she can send you there properly, with the background already written down.
- Your GP, for anything that belongs with your regular doctor
- A lactation consultant, when feeding needs more than a visit can resolve
- A child and family health nurse, for ongoing developmental checks
- Perinatal mental health services, if you need more support than a visit gives
Not left to chase it yourself
A referral on its own is a piece of paper. What makes the difference in the early weeks is somebody making sure the pieces connect: that the next person knows why you are coming, and that her notes are in your blue book where they will look.
Nothing moves without you. Your midwife talks to other professionals about your care with your agreement, and she will tell you what she is passing on. If you would rather she did not contact someone, say so.
Arrange a visit
Ready to have a midwife come to you?
Each midwife takes her own bookings by phone or email, and can tell you the areas she visits and when she is free.