INTERSECTION OF MULTIPLE BIRTHS, BIRTH TRAUMA AND PERINATAL MENTAL HEALTH Connecting multiple birth parents with a diverse range of organisations that provide support
With
Danya McStein,
Clinical Team Manager
Gidget Foundation Australia
Maddison Granger,
Gidget Angel (patient)
SEGMENT
Filmed in Sydney & Tahmoor, NSW | March 2026
Aussie mum Maddi was suddenly thrust into motherhood when her twin girls arrived nine weeks early. Immediately after their traumatic birth, she was rushed into the operating theatre for emergency care. Like many families of multiples, her newborns were taken straight to the NICU, where they remained for two months.
Despite the intensity of her experience – the traumatic delivery, the post‑operative complications and the daily 3‑hour round trips to sit beside her babies in the NICU – not a single healthcare professional checked in on Maddi’s mental wellbeing.
Maddi’s story reflects a broader, often overlooked gap in perinatal care for parents of multiples. Mothers of multiples are five times more likely to experience depression and have triple the rates of anxiety compared to mothers of singletons
Danya McStein is a Clinical Team Manager at Gidget Foundation Australia. She has experience as a psychologist, board-approved supervisor and educator, with a background across clinical practice, wellbeing consulting, university teaching and training facilitation.
Danya spoke with Australian Health Journal about mothers expecting twins showing prenatal depressive symptoms, while postpartum, facing higher risks of clinical exhaustion and postpartum depression.
Australian Health Journal spoke with Maddison (“Maddi”) Granger, the mother of twin girls who experienced perinatal mental health issues following the traumatic birthing experience and a terrifying post-birth operating emergency. She lives in Tahmoor, a town in Wollondilly Shire of the Macarthur Region in NSW, and is a Gidget Angel, with Gidget Foundation Australia.
Source: Supplied and adapted
-
Future of minimally invasive surgery
Macquarie University Hospital is the first hospital in Australia to have three robotic surgical systems. It remains the busiest centre for robotic urology in New South Wales and has rapidly growing programs in other areas. What is behind the Hospital’s success?
Conjoint Associate Professor Walter Kmet, CEO of Macquarie University Hospital, says that the story of robotics at the Hospital is driven by its academic health sciences identity.
-
Value-Based Health Care : Dental Health Services Victoria Case Study
Dental Health Services Victoria has implemented a value based health model for oral health, around the patient and the clinician that included both during co-design. This has been possible with a single oral health data system for the state of Victoria and staff keeping in mind the value and outcomes that patients seek.
-
Cardinal Health brings device reprocessing plant to Australia
Cardinal Health is global medical products manufacturer and leading provider of single-use device reprocessing services in the U.S. In Australia and New Zealand, as one of the largest suppliers of medical devices, announced on 23 May 2024 that it will be opening a single-use medical device reprocessing facility in Australia – its first reprocessing facility outside the United States.
On 18 March 2025 at the Health Innovation Living Lab at the John Hunter Hospital, a further announcement was made, on the chosen single-use medical device remanufacturing facility in Beresfield, Newcastle, set to commence operation late 2025, supported by the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development.
