Private midwives have "yet to find" a doctor willing to engage in arrangements to gain access to Medicare rebates and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the Australian College of Midwives says.
The college is building a case against the incoming arrangements, raising the issue at its annual NSW conference in Kiama, which closed on the weekend.
College members were asked to provide evidence of their difficulties in getting doctors to sign on to collaborative arrangements, in the hope of showing the new rules, which take effect from November, are unworkable.
President Hannah Dahlen pointed to the recent overturning of near-identical legislation in the United States, where "doctors were increasingly unhappy to sign contractual arrangements with midwives because they were worried about their own liability".
"Doctors are quite happy to collaborate with us, but they don't want to put their name on a document because they're worried about their own vulnerability. They're quite rightly saying 'what's in it for us'," Professor Dahlen said.
The new rules are believed to be the result of lobbying by medical groups opposed to home births.
They are one of dual hurdles facing private practice midwives who perform home births.
The second hurdle looms in June 2012, when an exemption period on insurance requirements lapses.
VOTE: Should it be easier for women to give birth safely at home?Nadia Szimhart had not long moved to Thirroul when she decided on a home birth for her second child.
She gained access to the region's fledgling publicly funded home birth service, run through the popular Midwifery Group Practice program, and gave birth to Hana Lanceley at home on January 28.
The experience was "absolutely beautiful", but was possible only because hers was a low-risk pregnancy which met very stringent eligibility requirements - more strict than those of most private practice midwives.
Ten babies have been born through the publicly funded service since July 2009, with another six births expected by the end of 2010.
Private practice midwives are the only other option for women who want a home birth but don't meet the public system's stringent guidelines.
"The regulations being put in place are going to make it difficult because most of the doctors I have spoken to - including my GP - don't agree with home birth," Mrs Szimhart said.
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