What happens in my brain when I get a migraine? And what medications can I use to treat it?

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Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”.

“Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly one-sided.

Some people experience an “aura” preceding the headache phase – usually a visual or sensory experience that evolves over five to 60 minutes. Auras can also involve other domains such as language, smell and limb function.

Migraine is a disease with a huge personal and societal impact. Most people cannot function at their usual level during a migraine, and anticipation of the next attack can affect productivity, relationships and a person’s mental health.

Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash

What’s happening in my brain?

The biological basis of migraine is complex, and varies according to the phase of the migraine. Put simply:

The earliest phase is called the prodrome. This is associated with activation of a part of the brain called the hypothalamus which is thought to contribute to many symptoms such as nausea, changes in appetite and blurred vision.

The hypothalamus is shown here in red. Blamb/Shutterstock

Next is the aura phase, when a wave of neurochemical changes occur across the surface of the brain (the cortex) at a rate of 3–4 millimetres per minute. This explains how usually a person’s aura progresses over time. People often experience sensory disturbances such as flashes of light or tingling in their face or hands.

In the headache phase, the trigeminal nerve system is activated. This gives sensation to one side of the face, head and upper neck, leading to release of proteins such as CGRP (calcitonin gene-related peptide). This causes inflammation and dilation of blood vessels, which is the basis for the severe throbbing pain associated with the headache.

Finally, the postdromal phase occurs after the headache resolves and commonly involves changes in mood and energy.

What can you do about the acute attack?

A useful way to conceive of migraine treatment is to compare putting out campfires with bushfires. Medications are much more successful when applied at the earliest opportunity (the campfire). When the attack is fully evolved (into a bushfire), medications have a much more modest effect.

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Aspirin

For people with mild migraine, non-specific anti-inflammatory medications such as high-dose aspirin, or standard dose non-steroidal medications (NSAIDS) can be very helpful. Their effectiveness is often enhanced with the use of an anti-nausea medication.

Triptans

For moderate to severe attacks, the mainstay of treatment is a class of medications called “triptans”. These act by reducing blood vessel dilation and reducing the release of inflammatory chemicals.

Triptans vary by their route of administration (tablets, wafers, injections, nasal sprays) and by their time to onset and duration of action.

The choice of a triptan depends on many factors including whether nausea and vomiting is prominent (consider a dissolving wafer or an injection) or patient tolerability (consider choosing one with a slower onset and offset of action).

As triptans constrict blood vessels, they should be used with caution (or not used) in patients with known heart disease or previous stroke.

Nurse takes blood pressure
Triptans should be used cautiously in patients with heart disease. CDC/Unsplash

Gepants

Some medications that block or modulate the release of CGRP, which are used for migraine prevention (which we’ll discuss in more detail below), also have evidence of benefit in treating the acute attack. This class of medication is known as the “gepants”.

Gepants come in the form of injectable proteins (monoclonal antibodies, used for migraine prevention) or as oral medication (for example, rimegepant) for the acute attack when a person has not responded adequately to previous trials of several triptans or is intolerant of them.

They do not cause blood vessel constriction and can be used in patients with heart disease or previous stroke.

Ditans

Another class of medication, the “ditans” (for example, lasmiditan) have been approved overseas for the acute treatment of migraine. Ditans work through changing a form of serotonin receptor involved in the brain chemical changes associated with the acute attack.

However, neither the gepants nor the ditans are available through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) for the acute attack, so users must pay out-of-pocket, at a cost of approximately A$300 for eight wafers.

What about preventing migraines?

The first step is to see if lifestyle changes can reduce migraine frequency. This can include improving sleep habits, routine meal schedules, regular exercise, limiting caffeine intake and avoiding triggers such as stress or alcohol.

Despite these efforts, many people continue to have frequent migraines that can’t be managed by acute therapies alone. The choice of when to start preventive treatment varies for each person and how inclined they are to taking regular medication. Those who suffer disabling symptoms or experience more than a few migraines a month benefit the most from starting preventives.

Pharmacy assistant serves customer
Some people will take medicines to prevent migraines. Tbel Abuseridze/Unsplash

Almost all migraine preventives have existing roles in treating other medical conditions, and the physician would commonly recommend drugs that can also help manage any pre-existing conditions. First-line preventives include:

  • tablets that lower blood pressure (candesartan, metoprolol, propranolol)
  • antidepressants (amitriptyline, venlafaxine)
  • anticonvulsants (sodium valproate, topiramate).

Some people have none of these other conditions and can safely start medications for migraine prophylaxis alone.

For all migraine preventives, a key principle is starting at a low dose and increasing gradually. This approach makes them more tolerable and it’s often several weeks or months until an effective dose (usually 2- to 3-times the starting dose) is reached.

It is rare for noticeable benefits to be seen immediately, but with time these drugs typically reduce migraine frequency by 50% or more.


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‘Nothing works for me!’

In people who didn’t see any effect of (or couldn’t tolerate) first-line preventives, new medications have been available on the PBS since 2020. These medications block the action of CGRP.

The most common PBS-listed anti-CGRP medications are injectable proteins called monoclonal antibodies (for example, galcanezumab and fremanezumab), and are self-administered by monthly injections.

These drugs have quickly become a game-changer for those with intractable migraines. The convenience of these injectables contrast with botulinum toxin injections (also effective and PBS-listed for chronic migraine) which must be administered by a trained specialist.

Up to half of adolescents and one-third of young adults are needle-phobic. If this includes you, tablet-form CGRP antagonists for migraine prevention are hopefully not far away.

Data over the past five years suggest anti-CGRP medications are safe, effective and at least as well tolerated as traditional preventives.

Nonetheless, these are used only after a number of cheaper and more readily available first-line treatments (all which have decades of safety data) have failed, and this also a criterion for their use under the PBS.

Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University and Anthony Khoo, Lecturer, Flinders University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Severe Complications for Pregnant Veterans Nearly Doubled in the Last Decade, a GAO Report Finds

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

    Series: Post-Roe America:Abortion Access Divides the Nation

    After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending nearly 50 years of federal protection for abortion, some states began enforcing strict abortion bans while others became new havens for the procedure. ProPublica is investigating how sweeping changes to reproductive health care access in America are affecting people, institutions and governments.

    Over the past decade, the rate of veterans suffering severe pregnancy complications has risen dramatically, a new federal report found.

    Veterans have raced to the hospital with dangerous infections, kidney failure, aneurysms or blood loss. They’ve required hysterectomies, breathing machines and blood transfusions to save their lives. Between 2011 and 2020, 13 veterans died after such complications.

    The report found that among people getting health care benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs, the rate of severe complications nearly doubled during that time, from about 93 per 10,000 hospitalizations in 2011 to just over 184 per 10,000 hospitalizations in 2020. Black veterans had the highest rates.

    The report, which was put together by the Government Accountability Office, also made recommendations for reducing the problem, which focus on conducting more routine screenings throughout pregnancy and in the postpartum period.

    “It is imperative that the VA help ensure veterans have the healthiest pregnancy outcomes possible,” the report said, highlighting the increasing number of veterans using the agency’s maternity benefits as well as the troublesome complication rates faced by Black women.

    The report’s findings are an unfortunate trend, said Alyssa Hundrup, director of health care at the GAO. The office analyzed data on 40,000 hospitalizations related to deliveries paid for by the VA. It captures a time period before 21 states banned or greatly restricted abortion and the military was thrust into a political battle over whether it would pay for active service members to travel for abortion care if a pregnancy was a risk to their health.

    Hundrup, who led the review, said the analysis included hospital records from days after delivery to a year postpartum. The report was mandated after Congress passed a law in 2021 that aimed to address the maternal health crisis among veterans. The law led to a $15 million investment in maternity care coordination programs for veterans.

    The report recommended that the VA analyze and collect more data on severe complications as well as data on the mental health, race and ethnicity of veterans who experience complications to understand the causes behind the increase and the reasons for the disparity. The report also states that oversight is needed to ensure screenings are being completed.

    Studies show there’s a connection between mental health conditions and pregnancy-related complications, VA officials said.

    The report recommended expanding the screening questions that providers ask patients at appointments to glean more information about their mental health, including anxiety and PTSD symptoms. It urged the VA to review the data more regularly.

    “You don’t know what you don’t measure,” Hundrup said in an interview with ProPublica.

    The VA health system, which historically served a male population, does not provide maternity care at its facilities. Instead, the agency has outsourced maternity care. But when patients were treated by those providers, the VA failed to track whether they were getting screened for other health issues and mental health problems.

    Officials hope the improved data collection will help the VA study underlying issues that may lead to complications. For example, do higher rates of anxiety have a connection to rates of high blood pressure in pregnant people?

    VA officials are working with a maternal health review committee to monitor the data as it is gathered. The agency recently conducted its first review of data going back five years about pregnancy-related complications, said Dr. Amanda Johnson, acting head of the VA’s Office of Women’s Health, who is overseeing the implementation of the report’s recommendations.

    The VA has created a dashboard to monitor pregnant veterans’ health outcomes. The VA’s data analysis team will also examine the impact of veterans’ ages on complications and whether they differ for people who live in urban and rural areas.

    VA officials will begin to review mental health screenings conducted by maternal care coordinators in March. The coordinators advocate for veterans, helping them between health care visits, whether their providers are inside or outside the VA.

    Johnson said that reducing racial and ethnic disparities is a priority for the agency. In 2018, ProPublica published “Lost Mothers,” a series that shed light on the country’s maternal health crisis. Studies have shown that in the general population, Black women are three times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy-related complications. While deaths made up only a small portion of the bad outcomes for Black veterans cited in the report, VA care could not spare them from elevated rates of severe complications. Johnson said the maternal health crisis also persists within the VA.

    “There is a disparity,” Johnson said. “We are not immune to that.”

    Research shows pregnant people who have used the VA’s coverage have higher rates of trauma and mental conditions that can increase their risks of complications and bad outcomes.

    This may be because many people who join the military enter it having already faced trauma, said Dr. Laura Miller, a psychiatrist and the medical director of reproductive mental health at the VA.

    She said veterans with PTSD have higher rates of complications such as preeclampsia, a potentially fatal condition related to high blood pressure, gestational diabetes and postpartum depression. If untreated during pregnancy, depression also increases the likelihood of preterm birth and lingering problems for babies.

    Hundrup said she hopes this proactive work will improve maternal health.

    “We want these numbers trending in the other direction,” Hundrup said.

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  • Missing Microbes – by Dr. Martin Blaser

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    You probably know that antibiotic resistance is a problem, but you might not realize just what a many-headed beast antibiotic overuse is.

    From growing antibiotic superbugs, to killing the friendly bacteria that normally keep pathogens down to harmless numbers (resulting in death of the host, as the pathogens multiply unopposed), to multiple levels of dangers in antibiotic overuse in the farming of animals, this book is scary enough that you might want to save it for Halloween.

    But, Dr. Blaser does not argue against antibiotic use when it’s necessary; many people are alive because of antibiotics—he himself recovered from typhoid because of such.

    The style of the book is narrative, but information-dense. It does not succumb to undue sensationalization, but it’s also far from being a dry textbook.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to understand the real problems caused by antibiotics, and how we can combat that beyond merely “try not to take them unnecessarily”, this book is very worthy reading.

    Click here to check out Missing Microbes, and learn more about yours!

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  • The Best Form Of Sugar During Exercise

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small 😎

    ❝What is the best form of sugar for an energy kick during exercise? Both type of sugar eg glicoae fructose dextrose etc and medium, ie drink, gel, solids etc❞

    Great question! Let’s be clear first that we’re going to answer this specifically for the context of during exercise.

    Because, if you’re not actively exercising strenuously right at the time when you’re taking the various things we’re going to be talking about, the results will not be the same.

    For scenarios that are anything less than “I am exercising right now and my muscles (not joints, or anything else) are feeling the burn”, then instead please see this:

    Snacks & Hacks: Eating For Energy (In Ways That Actually Work)

    Because, to answer your question, we’re going to be going 100% against the first piece of advice in that article, which was “Skip the quasi-injectables”, i.e., anything marketed as very quick release. Those things are useful for diabetics to have handy just in case of needing to urgently correct a hypo, but for most people most of the time, they’re not. See also:

    Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    However…

    When strenuously exercising in a way that is taxing our muscles, we do not have to worry about the usual problem of messing up our glucose metabolism by overloading our body with sugars faster than it can use it (thus: it has to hurriedly convert glucose and shove it anywhere it’ll fit to put it away, which is very bad for us), because right now, in the exercise scenario we’re describing, the body is already running its fastest metabolism and is grabbing glucose anywhere it can find it.

    Which brings us to our first key: the best type of sugar for this purpose is glucose. Because:

    • glucose: the body can use immediately and easily convert whatever’s spare to glycogen (a polysaccharide of glucose) for storage
    • fructose: the body cannot use immediately and any conversion of fructose to glycogen has to happen in the liver, so if you take too much fructose (without anything to slow it down, such as the fiber in whole fruit), you’re not only not going to get usable energy (the sugar is just going to be there in your bloodstream, circulating, not getting used, because it doesn’t trigger insulin release and insulin is the gatekeeper that allows sugar to be used), but also, it’s going to tax the liver, which if done to excess, is how we get non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
    • sucrose: is just a disaccharide of glucose and fructose, so it first gets broken down into those, and then its constituent parts get processed as above. Other disaccharides you’ll see mentioned sometimes are maltose and lactose, but again, they’re just an extra step removed from useful metabolism, so to save space, we’ll leave it at that for those today.
    • dextrose: is just glucose, but when the labeller is feeling fancy. It’s technically informational because it specifies what isomer of glucose it is, but basically all glucose found in food is d-glucose, i.e. dextrose. Other isomers of glucose can be synthesized (very expensively) in laboratories or potentially found in obscure places (the universe is vast and weird), but in short: unless someone’s going to extreme lengths to get something else, all glucose we encounter is dextrose, and all (absolutely all) dextrose is glucose.

    We’d like to show scientific papers contesting these head-to-head for empirical proof, but since the above is basic chemistry and physiology, all we could find is papers taking this for granted and stating in their initial premise that sports drinks, gels, bars usually contain glucose as their main sugar, potentially with some fructose and sucrose. Like this one:

    A Comprehensive Study on Sports and Energy Drinks

    As for how to take it, again this is the complete opposite of our usual health advice of “don’t drink your calories”, because in this case, for once…

    (and again, we must emphasize: only while actively doing strenuous exercise that is making specifically your muscles burn, not your joints or anything else; if your joints are burning you need to rest and definitely don’t spike your blood sugars because that will worsen inflammation)

    …just this once, we do want those sugars to be zipping straight into the blood. Which means: liquid is best for this purpose.

    And when we say liquid: gel is the same as a drink, so far as the body is concerned, provided the body in question is adequately hydrated (i.e., you are also drinking water).

    Here are a pair of studies (by the same team, with the same general methodology), testing things head-to-head, with endurance cyclists on 6-hour stationary cycle rides:

    CHO Oxidation from a CHO Gel Compared with a Drink during Exercise

    Meanwhile, liquid beat solid, but only significantly so from the 90-minute mark onwards, and even that significant difference was modest (i.e. it’s clinically significant, it’s a statistically reliable result and improbable as random happenstance, but the actual size of the difference was not huge):

    Oxidation of Solid versus Liquid CHO Sources during Exercise

    We would hypothesize that the reason that liquids only barely outperformed solids for this task is precisely because the solids in question were also designed for the task. When a company makes a fast-release energy bar, they don’t load it with fiber to slow it down. Which differentiates this greatly from, say, getting one’s sugars from whole fruit.

    If the study had compared apples to apple juice, we hypothesize the results would have been very different. But alas, if that study has been done, we couldn’t find it.

    Today has been all about what’s best during exercise, so let’s quickly finish with a note on what’s best before and after:

    Before: What To Eat, Take, And Do Before A Workout

    After: Overdone It? How To Speed Up Recovery After Exercise

    Take care!

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  • Just One Heart – by Dr. Jonathan Fisher

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    First, what this is not: a book to say eat fiber, go easy on the salt, get some exercise, and so forth.

    What this rather is: a book about the connection between the heart and mind; often written poetically, the simple biological reality is that our emotional state does have a genuine impact on our heart health, and as such, any effort to look after our heart (healthwise) would be incomplete without an effort to look after our heart (emotionally).

    Dr. Fisher talks about the impact of stress and uncertainty, as well as peace and security, on heart health—and then, having sorted emotional states into “heart breakers” and “heart wakers”, he goes about laying out a plan for what is, emotionally and thus also physiologically, good for our heart.

    Chapter by chapter, he walks us through the 7 principles to live by:

    1. Steadiness: how to steady your heart amid chaos
    2. Wisdom: how to develop a wise heart in uncertain times
    3. Openness: how to safely open your heart in a threatening world
    4. Wholeness: how to show up with your whole heart without going to pieces
    5. Courage: how to lead with a courageous heart when fear surrounds you
    6. Lightness: how to live with a light heart in a heavy world
    7. Warmth: how to love with a warm heart when life feels cold

    The style is anything but clinical; it’s well-written, certainly, and definitely informed in part by his medical understanding of the heart, but it’s entirely the raw human element that shines throughout, and that makes the ideas a lot more tangible.

    Bottom line: if you’d like your heart to be healthy (cardiac health) and your heart to be healthy (emotional health), this book is a very worthwhile read.

    Click here to check out Just One Heart, and take care of yours!

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  • How To En-Joy Life (With Long-Term Benefits)

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    New Year’s Dissolutions?

    We have talked previously about:

    The Science Of New Year’s Pre-Resolutions

    …and here we are now at the end of the first week of January; how’s it going?

    Hopefully, based on that article, it’s been going just great since December! For most people, statistically speaking, it hasn’t.

    Around now is typically when many people enter the “bargaining” stage of New Year’s Resolutions, which at this point are often in serious danger of becoming New Year’s Dissolutions.

    What’s important, really?

    When trying to juggle potentially too many new items, it’s important to be able to decide where to focus one’s efforts in the case of needing to drop a ball or two.

    First, the laziest way…

    The path of least resistance

    This is perhaps most people’s go-to. It, without too much thought, drops whatever feels most onerous, and continues with what seems easiest.

    This is not a terrible approach, because what we enjoy, we will be more likely to continue. But it can be improved upon, while still getting that benefit.

    Marie Kondo your resolutions values

    Instead of throwing out the new habits that “don’t spark joy”, ask yourself:

    “What brings me joy?”

    …because often, the answer is something that’s a result of a thing that didn’t “spark joy” directly. Many things in life involve delayed gratification.

    Let’s separate the [unwanted action] from the [wanted result] for a moment.

    Rather than struggling on with something unpleasant for the hope of joy at the end of the rainbow, though, give yourself permission to improve the middle bit.

    For example, if the idea of having lots of energy and good cardiovascular fitness is what prompted you to commit to those 6am runs each morning (but they’re not actually joyous in your experience), what would be more fun and still give you the same benefit?

    Now that you know “having lots of energy and good CV fitness” is what sparks joy, not “getting up to run at 6am”, you can change lanes without pulling off the highway entirely.

    Maybe a dance class will be more your speed, for example.

    The key here is: you’ll have changed your resolution, without breaking it in any way that mattered

    Want more ways to keep on track without burning out?

    Who doesn’t? So, check out:

    How To Keep On Keeping On… Long Term!

    Enjoy!

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  • Women want to see the same health provider during pregnancy, birth and beyond

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Hazel Keedle, Western Sydney University and Hannah Dahlen, Western Sydney University

    In theory, pregnant women in Australia can choose the type of health provider they see during pregnancy, labour and after they give birth. But this is often dependent on where you live and how much you can afford in out-of-pocket costs.

    While standard public hospital care is the most common in Australia, accounting for 40.9% of births, the other main options are:

    • GP shared care, where the woman sees her GP for some appointments (15% of births)
    • midwifery continuity of care in the public system, often called midwifery group practice or caseload care, where the woman sees the same midwife of team of midwives (14%)
    • private obstetrician care (10.6%)
    • private midwifery care (1.9%).

    Given the choice, which model would women prefer?

    Our new research, published BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, found women favoured seeing the same health provider throughout pregnancy, in labour and after they have their baby – whether that’s via midwifery group practice, a private midwife or a private obstetrician.

    Assessing strengths and limitations

    We surveyed 8,804 Australian women for the Birth Experience Study (BESt) and 2,909 provided additional comments about their model of maternity care. The respondents were representative of state and territory population breakdowns, however fewer respondents were First Nations or from culturally or linguistically diverse backgrounds.

    We analysed these comments in six categories – standard maternity care, high-risk maternity care, GP shared care, midwifery group practice, private obstetric care and private midwifery care – based on the perceived strengths and limitations for each model of care.

    Overall, we found models of care that were fragmented and didn’t provide continuity through the pregnancy, birth and postnatal period (standard care, high risk care and GP shared care) were more likely to be described negatively, with more comments about limitations than strengths.

    What women thought of standard maternity care in hospitals

    Women who experienced standard maternity care, where they saw many different health care providers, were disappointed about having to retell their story at every appointment and said they would have preferred continuity of midwifery care.

    Positive comments about this model of care were often about a midwife or doctor who went above and beyond and gave extra care within the constraints of a fragmented system.

    The model of care with the highest number of comments about limitations was high-risk maternity care. For women with pregnancy complications who have their baby in the public system, this means seeing different doctors on different days.

    Some respondents received conflicting advice from different doctors, and said the focus was on their complications instead of their pregnancy journey. One woman in high-risk care noted:

    The experience was very impersonal, their focus was my cervix, not preparing me for birth.

    Why women favoured continuity of care

    Overall, there were more positive comments about models of care that provided continuity of care: private midwifery care, private obstetric care and midwifery group practice in public hospitals.

    Women recognised the benefits of continuity and how this included informed decision-making and supported their choices.

    The model of care with the highest number of positive comments was care from a privately practising midwife. Women felt they received the “gold standard of maternity care” when they had this model. One woman described her care as:

    Extremely personable! Home visits were like having tea with a friend but very professional. Her knowledge and empathy made me feel safe and protected. She respected all of my decisions. She reminded me often that I didn’t need her help when it came to birthing my child, but she was there if I wanted it (or did need it).

    However, this is a private model of care and women need to pay for it. So there are barriers in accessing this model of care due to the cost and the small numbers working in Australia, particularly in regional, rural and remote areas, among other barriers.

    Women who had private obstetricians were also positive about their care, especially among women with medical or pregnancy complications – this type of care had the second-highest number of positive comments.

    This was followed by women who had continuity of care from midwives in the public system, which was described as respectful and supportive.

    However, one of the limitations about continuity models of care is when the woman doesn’t feel connected to her midwife or doctor. Some women who experienced this wished they had the opportunity to choose a different midwife or doctor.

    What about shared care with a GP?

    While shared care between the GP and hospital model of care is widely promoted in the public maternity care system as providing continuity, it had a similar number of negative comments to those who had fragmented standard hospital care.

    Considering there is strong evidence about the benefits of midwifery continuity of care, and this model of care appears to be most acceptable to women, it’s time to expand access so all Australian women can access continuity of care, regardless of their location or ability to pay.

    Hazel Keedle, Senior Lecturer of Midwifery, Western Sydney University and Hannah Dahlen, Professor of Midwifery, Associate Dean Research and HDR, Midwifery Discipline Leader, Western Sydney University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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