Labouring Together: Collaborative Alliances in Maternity Care in Victoria, Australia

Mixed-methods exploration of interprofessional collaboration (IPC) and shared decision-making (SDM) in maternity care in Victoria, Australia revealed that effective IPC and SDM were not routinely conducted. Macro-level barriers identified included inadequate healthcare policy to support individual stakeholder autonomy, and the dominant discourses of risk avoidance and bureaucratic-style decision-making vetoed choice.