Alison Eddy: College of Midwives chief executive defends giving toast to new mothers

The College of Midwives wants new mums given toast.

The Minister Shane Reti has asked for a re-think of not offering toast at Wellington Hospital to those who've just given birth.

Health NZ had been advised it was nutritionally sub-optimal.

College of Midwives chief executive, Alison Eddy, says toast is long-standing offering at such a time.

"There's lot of reasons for that - women often don't feel like a full meal, just like marathon runners don't feel like sitting down to a nutritious meal."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Toast has become the latest health issue. So what's happened
here is the Health Minister Shane that Ettie has had
to step in to see to make sure that the
toast returns to the Wellington Regional Hospital Maternity ward. Usually
mums who've just given birth are offered a little bit
of toast, but how New Zealand says that on the
advice of dieticians, they've switched to offering a meal instead.
Alison Eddie is there is a College of Midwives Chief

(00:21):
Executive and with us.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Now, Hey Allison, Hi, Heather, how are you?

Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm well, thank you? Is this really a nutrition thing
or is it actually a budget thing?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, it's difficult to say, isn't it. I mean we've
had an age old tradition of toast and tea after
labor and booth. It's lots of reasons for that. Woman
often don't feel like a full meal, just like marathon
runners don't feel like sitting down to a nutritious meal
or a big meal after running the marathon. You know,
women that have been through the process of labor. Offen
wants something light and comforting and warm. It may not

(00:53):
be the most nutritious food but it has a lot
of significance and cultural value as well. And so you know,
I know that the health system is under incredible pressure
at the moment to save money. So it does seem
as if there may have been a motive around that.
Hard to say, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Let's assume. Let's assume we'll deal each with each one differently. Okay,
So Allison, if it is a budget tree thing, really,
how much money are they saving here?

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, it doesn't seem like a very extensive commodity.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
We're not talking about like, we're not talking about the
fancy gluten re vogels here are we. We're talking about
pretty straight up and down white bread.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Pretty much standard hospital issue, but like the coffee, Yeah,
nothing flesh.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Okay. They say that staff have also been nibbling, nibbling
the toast even then, though I find it hard to
begrudge this because the staff sometimes have to do overtime
and stuff, So surely you're entitled to a couple of
slices of white bread.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Oh well, I mean, I think mostly people bring their
own food in because they often don't get a very
long break, and they get half an hour even to
get to the cafeteria and back in half an hour's
almost impossible. And if you get half, if you're lucky
enough to get half an hour, yeah, but in the
middle of the night it's closed and so you know
you're working extra hours. Maybe you might have a piece
of toast. But I mean, people are very aware that

(02:07):
it is for the patients and your families and would
never begrudge them that at their own expense. But actually,
if we can't look after our stuff, that's a bit
sad as well as Okay.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Now let's assume that they are telling the truth when
they say it's a nutrition thing. The problem here, it
seems to me, is that the meals in the hospitals.
You can tell me if I'm wrong, but I thought
the meals in the hospitals where it prescribed times, right,
So if you get birth just after breakfast, I mean
that's tough to ask a mum then to wait till
lunchtime before she can get some food in her tummy.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Absolutely, absolutely, the meals are deliberates at times and not
convenient times around when you might be giving birth. Yes,
so you need something that you can have immediately available
to you when you need it.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Also, Allison, whatever happened to us being like, literally, I've
just pushed the baby out. I'm obviously a grown up
and can make my own decisions about what I put
in my mouth and whether it's toast or not.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
What happened to that, well, that's interesting as well. It's
another interesting question. Yeah, I'm not sure what the what
the nutritious meal would look like.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
To be honest, the hospital foods are probably not that nutritious,
is it. I'm struggling to have confidence in these people
if this is the kind of stupid decision they make.
What am I being unfair?

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Well, I mean I think there's what I'm seeing, and
when I mean, I'm not employed by the by Health
New Ealand or to war. But what I'm seeing is
and people are under incredible pressure to save money. They're
looking for lines that they can cross out of budgets
so they can balance the bottom line. And I think
sometimes in those situations, people don't always make thoughtful decisions
because they've got a lot of pressure coming down on

(03:40):
them with anything to discriminate against women or to deliberately
undermine people's healthy needs or their needs after they've given birth.
I think it was just a let's see where we
can draw a line in a budget because because we've
got so much expectation on them to do that at.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
The moment, because of the number of ridiculous decisions that
are being made at the moment. There is a theory
starting to as a slightly conspiratorial theory. But the theory
is that this is being being done, like really stupid
decisions being taken deliberately to cause as much outcry and
uproar as possible. Is that potentially what's going on.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
I don't know. I don't think so. I don't know
if it's deliberate. It's had a lot of it's caused
a lot of pushback, yeah, for lots of reasons.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
All right, yeah, Allison, thank you mate. I really appreciated
Alison Eddie, College of Midwife's chief executive. If I had,
if I had to give you my take on this,
I would say that what was done was done for
budgetary reasons, and they realized how bad that looks because
oh cool, Yeah, take the food away from the woman
who's just done a marathon, you know, twenty seven hour berthing.
She's the one you should take the toast away from.
They realized how bad that looks to them. They were like,

(04:48):
it's nutrition, which also looks bad because come on, just
come on, you don't need to give people, you know,
their meat and veggies after they've given birth to you
just want to put something in your mouth and go
to sleep, don't you. That's generally what happens. For more
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