A Plea from a Victorian Dad and Psychiatrist: Change the Name On The Health Centre, For Mums, Babies and All Who Love Them.

These photos are cute aren’t they? That’s me and my firstborn in 2007.

He needed as much help as he could get to grow into his new life.

So did his mum. And so did I. The better I grew into parenthood, the better his mum grew, and the better he grew.

Which is why I am writing this now. With Victoria's councils at the polls this month, it’s time to gauge support out there for a long-overdue municipal and public health change: The name on the signs out the front of our world-leading universal early family health centres.

I've worked with Maternal and Child Health nurses, centres and services for nearly two decades and I am so proud of what we have achieved together.

When I talk at conferences to people from overseas about the system we have here to wrap around new families of all shapes and sizes, I'm so proud then too, we really are world-leaders.

But there’s one way in which we need to catch up to 2024.

As a founding member of the Australian Fatherhood Research Consortium I have become increasingly aware of growing evidence of both the detrimental effects of excluding fathers from the perinatal and early family periods, and of the great benefits to maternal and child health of including fathers from the get go.

Of course, you don't need a pile of research papers to see this - it makes sense, it passes the pub test. Victoria is the only state that calls its universal early family health services Maternal and Child Health.

I looked into this as a junior perinatal psychiatrist 15 years ago, not wanting to rock the boat, especially as a young bloke finding his way in a challenging new field. It was explained gently to me that the MCH name in Vic mattered because only Vic MCH nurses had midwifery training. And that was how they wanted it to stay, for recognition of their unique skills.

Also, more quietly, there was a bit of anxiety that if the name changed, MCHNs would be expected to do more for dads than they felt like they knew how to do.

I was in quiet awe of my MCH colleagues, nearly all of them women my senior at the time. I was a tiny bit scared of a few of the older ones, but even they were good to me, green slip of a lad that I was. Wherever I went, MCH nurses worked respectfully and warmly with me. I’ll always be grateful for that.

I think we got along so well, partly because I wanted to work better with dads, and so did they. Many MCHNs I worked with expressed some awkwardness about the sign out the front, mirroring the puzzlement most dads I knew personally and professionally here in Victoria felt about it.

Then there were the LGBTQIA+ parents, accustomed already to awkwardness and puzzlement perhaps, but no less troubled by the exclusion.

So many good reasons to change the name. So what’s stopping us? I’ve mentioned the political reasons - it appears little has changed there in the last 15 years (if it has, let me know!).

I wonder if also there’s a maternal part of many MCH nurses that loves the maternal so much, and wants to preserve that sense of a special place just for mums and their bubs.

Amid the stink of toxic patriarchy and #metoo I get that a sanctuary for women who’ve just given birth is really important.

The question for me is what price that beautiful one-maternal-figure-to-another protective exclusion of other parents and caregivers comes at.

I know what price it came at for me.

So to the photos of me and my new baby, in the first days after he arrived. I am smiling in these photos, but I remember how long it took for the smiles to start to really shine from the heart, and in all these photos that’s a couple of months away.

My heart was devoted to the little guy and his amazing mum from long beforehand, but the warmth of mutual enjoyment didn’t seep through to my core for many long late winter and early spring weeks.

There was just so much changing to do.

So I put everything I had into changing for him and his mum. I changed him a lot, literally, insert nappy jokes here. I walked a lot of pavement miles, including to the local MCH centre.

Where I felt like a third wheel. This wasn’t the fault of the women looking after us, they were to a woman courteous, kind and supportive. They greeted me, they asked if I had any questions, some even asked me how I was, though I wasn’t sure they were ready to hear an answer other than ‘fine thanks’.

I wasn’t fine. I was changing and it was the hardest thing I have ever done.

Would it have helped me and my new family if the local centre meant to help us was called a Child and Family Health Centre or (as Jamal Hakim in the current Lord Mayoral elections is suggesting for City of Melbourne) a Parental and Child Health Centre?

I think so, yes.

We were in City of Melbourne at the time, the nurses we met were terrific. But a third wheel I felt. Who knows how much earlier the sun might have come out in my new dad’s heart if I had felt less like an optional extra?

Yes, the name matters. Clearly there are still in 2024 some in MCH who struggle with such change. I feel for them, sure their hearts are in the right place, but I have to side with the babies, their mums and all the other parents and caregivers the name currently excludes.

Babies have the toughest job on the planet, because they have to change the most in the shortest time. We that must keep up with them have the second toughest job.

Compared with that gruelling 24/7 learning curve, organisational change is pretty straightforward. And this change could change things for so many new families.

So ask your local candidates if they support changing the name. MCH is housed by municipality, so now is a great time for this conversation.

Sign the change.org petition put together by parenting equity advocate Michael Ray: https://www.change.org/p/renaming-and-expanding-maternal-and-child-health?recruited_by_id=5c0df3d0-8308-11ef-90d1-ffd6c8ef37f7&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

And if you’re feeling energetic, you could contact the Victorian Association of Maternal and Child Health Nurses, the Municipal Association of Victoria, the Department of Fairness, Families and Health, and your local state MPs.

Let those with the power to make this change happen know you care about this.

Thanks, from me and the little guy.