Australia is experiencing extremely high rates of caesarean birth, with around 1 in 3 birthing women experiencing a caesarean and 1 in 3 reporting birth trauma.

But birth trauma is deeply individual.

It is not always connected to physical pain, injury or medical intervention. Trauma can also come from fear, loss of control, separation, feeling unheard, or suddenly losing the people you expected to have beside you during one of the most significant moments of your life.

Every birthing person deserves access to at least two support people — including during caesarean birth.
In many maternity settings, families may have two support people during labour and vaginal birth. Yet when a birth moves into theatre, that support is often reduced to just one person.

A caesarean is still a birth.

The birthing person still deserves emotional support. Their partner may also need support. Families deserve choice in deciding who they need beside them — whether that is their partner, doula, birth photographer, family member or another trusted support person.

This is not about overcrowding an operating theatre or compromising clinical safety. It is about creating a fair, safe and consistent standard of care wherever it is clinically possible.

There are already private obstetricians and hospitals that allow a second support person into theatre. I have personally seen circumstances where hospital policy may generally state one support person, yet an individual obstetrician advocates for their patient and a second person is permitted.

That highlights an important inequality.

Access to meaningful support should not depend on where you give birth, who your obstetrician is, or whether you can afford private maternity care.
Families using the public system should not have fewer choices simply because of financial circumstance.

Every family deserves dignity, continuity, emotional safety and equitable support regardless of how their baby is born.

This petition is calling for national change so that birthing families are given the option of having a minimum of two support people during caesarean birth wherever it is clinically safe to do so.

Your signature adds another voice to that call.

Even if this is something you may never personally need, your support still matters. Change happens when enough people stand together and say that families deserve better.

Please sign, share and help us gather as many signatures as possible.
Because the way a baby enters the world should never determine how much support their family is allowed to have.

Words from families

“This is so important. We loved your support during our C-section. The photos from our birth were vital in my attachment journey with him during intense postnatal anxiety and depression. They helped me feel more connected to my birth and my baby after such a difficult pregnancy and a birth that didn’t go to plan. Love this petition!”

“The moment I had to go into surgery with no one else from our team, we were both so scared. The second support person is often support for both of us.”