Aims of Seminar
To bring together stakeholders in a collaborative forum to consider ways in which our maternity services can better support normal birth and focus on the increasing intervention and caesarean section rate across Australia.

To identify safe effective evidence based alternative approaches to practice, and opportunities for collaboration that support normal birth.

To consider sustainable policy, education, workforce, practice and research innovations to enhance the health and wellbeing of women and their babies for future generations.

Audience
Midwives & obstetricians providing maternity care
Health professionals with an interest in maternity care, including neonatologists, General Practitioners, nurses
Consumers of maternity care
Health services executives including Director of Midwifery / Medical / Clinical Services
Program managers with interests in improving quality, efficiency, and risk management
Policy makers and planners

Important Dates
28th February 2008: submission of abstracts
28th April 2008: notification of acceptance
12th May 2008: deadline for speaker registration
11th August 2008: submission of PowerPoint presentation

Call for papers
Submissions for abstracts that demonstrate collaborative around the following themes:
Normal birth - ensuring women's rights and choices
Protecting, promoting and supporting normal birth
Normal birth - restoring the balance
Normal birth - our responsibility for the health and wellbeing of future generations
Normal birth - threatened event, great expectation or professional obligation

Fees
Presenters at the conference must pay their own travel expenses. Presenters are also required to pay the applicable registration fees.

Oral presentations - a 25% reduction on the early bird registration fee will be awarded to delegates, provided this registration fee is received by 12th May 2008. Poster presenters are not eligible for the 25% reduction on the early bird registration fee.

Selection process
The Symposium Program Committee will review all abstracts and make selections based on content, objectives, relevance to the conference themes, and the evaluation criteria.

The deadline for abstract submissions is 28 February 2008. All persons submitting abstracts will receive notification of the committee’s decision no later than 28 April 2008. The deadline for the presenting author’s registration fee is 12 May 2008. If the registration fees have not been paid the abstract will not be included in the final program and book of abstracts.

Abstracts will be allocated oral or poster presentations by the Scientific Program Committee, with consideration given to the author's preference. Being granted an oral presentation is subject to the quality of the abstract submission and availability within the relevant session. Authors requesting poster presentations will have their request granted subject to acceptance of the abstract.

Guidelines for abstracts
Abstracts should:

• Be presented in Microsoft Word format and be no more than 250 words in length
• Include the title of the proposed paper, each author's name with the name of the presenting author underlined and contact details, i.e. address, phone and email
• Font must be Times New Roman, size 11 point. All typing should be single-spaced
• Title, Author's name(s), Affiliation (institution, city, and country) and presenter's email address should all be centred, and the body of the abstract should be full justified.
• The Title must use Upper and lower case letters and be in bold text
• Please underline the name of the presenting author
• Leave one blank line between the presenting author’s email address and the beginning of the body of the abstract. A new line may be used for each paragraph in the body of the abstract
• All margins (top, bottom, left and right) must be set to 2.5cm
  Abbreviations may be used only after first defining the term. Use generic names for medicines. Write numbers as numerals rather than words
• Tables, figures, literature references and acknowledgements should not form any part of the abstract’s content.
• It is the responsibility of the presenting author to ensure accuracy of content, spelling and presentation as abstracts will be published as submitted, subject to reformatting that may be required by the conference
  organisers.

Presentation format
Abstracts accepted will be presented at the seminar as a PowerPoint presentation. In addition to the presentation, papers for accepted abstracts will also be welcomed. Presenters will be allocated a 20 - minute timeslot, including 5 minutes for discussion.

Abstracts should be submitted to bnl08@remark.com.au

For further information
Email: bnl08@remark.com.au
Ph. Remark Pty Ltd on 02 9517 3664
To find out more about ACMI - visit the website at www.midwives.org.au