Wanaka Midwives

13/10/2025

Lovely story in the Wanaka App, thanks Sue Wards 🙏🏻💜🪻🌷

It's Your Place

10/10/2025

As part of Baby Loss Awareness Week 2025 there will be a small gathering at the Baby Memorial Wall, Wānaka Cemetery, Sunday 12th October, 12.30pm

A short ceremony, candle lighting, blessing, tea, coffee and cupcakes (thanks Food for Love!)

We remember the babies born sleeping, those who were carried for the shortest or longest time but never held, those who were held but could not be taken home, those who came home but could not stay.

Everyone welcome 🩷 💙 💜

If its pouring we’ll hold the gathering in the foyer of the Anglican Church. It’s a non-religious service but the church have kindly offered their foyer in case the weather is bad. Plaques for the wall can be ordered online at qldc.govt.nz (search 'baby memorials')

16/07/2025

Anna's birth story 🩷

Throughout most of my pregnancy I thought I’d go to hospital to give birth, I had the mindset “what if something goes wrong” and assumed it was safest to be there just in case. At our antenatal classes we talked about other options and how the new birthing unit might be ready in time- it planted a seed. The birthing unit opened a few weeks before our due date, and after a little tour, I felt optimistic about birthing there. My partner Nico and midwife Emma were on board, and both baby and I were healthy- it felt like a good choice.

On our baby’s due date I woke up at 4am with back ache. It continued all day but I carried on as normal until around 4/5pm when the cramping and aches were getting more intense. I used a swiss ball, tens machine plus breathing techniques to labour at home to begin with. At about 7:30pm I think Nico called Emma’s number, and the on call midwife suggested we come in around 8:30pm. So glad it was only 5 minute drive!

We were happy to see Emily, the student midwife, was there too. We set up the birthing room to be as relaxing as possible and I put my playlist on. The contractions kept coming regularly and I just kept breathing, swaying , leaning over the swiss ball and squeezing Nico’s hand. I think around midnight I felt the urge to push and at 1:23am our little baby girl arrived. I held her on my chest straight away, we moved to the bed, and half an hour later she latched for her first feed. After birthing the placenta, getting stitches and having a shower (while baby girl had skin to skin with Nico) it was time to move into our postnatal room.

Baby girl was on the small side so she needed to have her blood sugars checked every 3 hours. I was glad I had expressed some colostrum beforehand, as we could give this to her as well as breastfeeding for the first couple of days.

The next couple of days were a warm hazy bliss. The heat pump was on, it rained outside, and we had midwives available at the press of a button. I’m so glad we were able to spend those first 2 nights being looked after and getting help with feeding, thank you all so much!

11/07/2025

We’re looking for uplifting pregnancy, birth, and postnatal stories to share on our page throughout the year. If you feel called to share your journey, please send us a DM! Your story holds power and by sharing it, we hope to continue uplifting and celebrating the strength of our birthing community

11/07/2025

Rākai Kahukura is almost one year old! So far we have has 38 births and 125 postnatal stays at the unit. The ODT and Wanaka Sun are planning to run a story to celebrate our first year and are keen to hear from women and whanau who have given birth or stayed postnatally at the unit. Would you be prepared to share your story, or even provide a quote? If you are please PM us and we will put you in touch with Rawan the reporter (or just comment here!). Update! We have enough stories now, thank you so much everyone 🙏☺️

19/05/2025

Thank you to this gorgeous family for sharing their birth story! Let us know if you would like to share your birth story with us ❤️

As a first time mum, it wasn’t easy to decide where to give birth. Ideally, staying in Wanaka would have been best, but something was telling me to be closer to a hospital. There are so many reasons why people end up in hospital during labour, and I think I just wanted to avoid any travelling while in labour. I simply wanted to be in one place, and close to medical care. In the end, I was really happy with my decision.

One big advantage was that my partner’s family lives in Invercargill, so we were able to stay at his parents’ house. We went to Invercargill on my due date. I ended up being five days overdue, so we had lots of time to relax and spend time with my partner and his family. We went for nice walks on the beach and in parks, did some shopping, and enjoyed good food.

I also met a new midwife, Bonnie Kite. I contacted Bonnie a couple weeks before my due date, so she knew about my arrival. I met her at the hospital before the birth, she did a basic check up and we made a plan.

A few days later, I went into labour at around 3 am and stayed at home until about 9 pm, when the contractions became quite intense I called Bonnie and she offered to meet me at the hospital 30 minutes later. When we arrived, we were given this double room with lots of space, couch and pool. Bonnie dimmed the lights to help me feel more comfortable. We brought a little speaker and played a cool playlist. I started using gas straight away, which was actually kind of fun 😊. A couple of hours later, I got into the birthing pool too. The atmosphere was actually really good. Bonnie and her assistant were calm, relaxed, and super kind.

The only challenge was that I was dilating very slowly. After 24 hours of contractions, I had only dilated to about 5–6 cm. At that point, I asked for an epidural. Once I got it, thankfully, it was quick, it was such a massive relief. My partner and I were finally able to get some rest.

Eventually, we reached the pushing stage, and then, there she was! Our little legend, Jade, was born.

Bonnie was amazing, especially during the pushing stage. It was quite hard because I couldn’t feel anything, but she motivated me and had so much trust in me. She even stayed on past the end of her night shift to help me finish the birth naturally. I was so grateful.

We spent one night in Invercargill Hospital and had our own room with a bathroom, so cool! All the nurses, doctors, midwives, and staff were incredible. They looked after us so well. Honestly, we had such a beautiful birth experience and made lasting memories. I’m so happy with my decision and wouldn’t change a thing.

We also spent one night at the Alexandra birthing unit and one night at the Wanaka birthing unit, which was super fancy 😊. There’s such great support for mums here in New Zealand.

07/05/2025

All of our midwives working in Wanaka support local primary birth - whether it’s your first or tenth baby.
Home birth maybe the perfect choice for you and your family.

This is "Home Birth Documentary" by Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

14/02/2025

Pippa Isabella Jean Heaney was born 30 December 2024 with the help of our amazing midwife Jenni! Both Patrick and I loved our first birth experience and we could not thank Jenni enough for her wonderful support! On the morning of the 29 December I started to feel small contractions at home. A phone call to Jenni was made where she ensured everything was okay and I could continue with early labour at home. Being out in Tarras Jenni arrived earlier in the evening to assess my progress. All was going well and we were off to the birthing unit in town. Once we arrived we continue to work with Jenni through our later stages of labour and finally the pool was ready for me to enter. Pippa arrived at 12.07am naturally in the water with support from my husband Patrick and midwife Jenni. Both Patrick and I could not thank Jenni enough for her amazing support throughout the whole labour! It was a beautiful, relaxing and stress free birth, which is everything we ever wanted as first time parents! The beautiful midwifes at the unit after were amazing Katy, Deb, Justine and Sharon all know how to make an amazing Milo and give the most wonderful breast feeding and first time tips and tricks to support you in those early days! Thank you all for the amazing support you have given to our little family we cannot thank you enough! 💕

05/12/2024

Thank you Kathryn for sharing your pregnancy story with us!

We would love to hear about your pregnancy, birth and feeding stories, as this helps provide valuable insights for other families. Please get in touch if you would be happy to share yours...

"Having experienced a very early miscarriage in my first pregnancy, I tried to remain a little bit emotionally detached when I fell pregnant again, just in case. I was around 8 weeks pregnant when I got in touch with Jenni. I felt immediately at ease and at every step of the pregnancy journey, Jenni continued to ease my concerns and talk me through what I needed to know. My pregnancy went super smoothly right up to a few weeks before full term, at which point we started having a bit of fun with my blood pressure readings. I am super grateful that Jenni quickly realised this was largely a result of my nervousness of clinical settings and advocated to allow me to remain at home and do these readings myself. Despite hoping for a local birth, I ended up having to head through to Dunedin after my waters broke but labour didn't kick into gear. The hand-over to the Dunedin based team was seamless and I felt fully prepared for the change in plans because Jenni had talked me through the possibilities. While I was a bit disappointed that Jenni wasn't going to be able to be at the birth after being my guidance counselor on all things pregnancy and birth for the previous eight months, the team in Dunedin were excellent. Jenni's follow up care was so helpful as I learned to navigate the early days of motherhood, I would have been overwhelmed and lost without her advice and support. Midwives are incredible and I am so so thankful to Jenni for all her care and support!"

15/11/2024

The final online antenatal breastfeeding class for 2024 is Wednesday 4th Dec. Classes will resume in Feb 2025.