Speaker: Professor Steve Robson, Obstetrician, Gynaecologist and AMA President.

I’m Steve Robson, I’m an Obstetrician and Gynecologist based here in Canberra.

I’m the Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Australian National University. I’ve got both a private and a public hospital practice. 

I guess I get two common questions from women: one is when women are pregnant, they want to know can they drink at all, or is there a safe time or amount of alcohol, and the one I get all the time is for women who are trying for pregnancy and they want to know ‘I’ve heard that I shouldn’t drink if I’m trying for pregnancy, is that true?’ 

So, these are the common things that I hear all the time.

There are many things to cover if you’re looking at optimising the health and wellbeing of a mother who’s pregnant, but one of the key things that we can do, and we can do simply, is deal with alcohol consumption.

It’s such a simple thing to do, but we have to have the courage and the skill to bring up the topic and to have conversations with women. So, it’s important to make sure that we can do it effectively and well and not be judgmental. 

Evidence is always changing and continuing professional development is fundamental to making sure that we provide the best evidence-based care for the best outcomes to people.

There are obviously lots of resources available to help inform our care and the way we learn, but the Every Moment Matters website is a fantastic resource and it’s got links to training that can help us become better doctors, to provide better care to patients. 

I think it should be almost our very first stop.

Text on screen: For more information visit everymomentmatters.org.au 

End slide: shows the Every Moment Matters logo and the FARE logo, with the text: This project is endorsed and funded by the Australian Government.