Budget funds first Indigenous birth centre

Labor's Linda Burney says the funding commitment shows the government backs Aboriginal governance.

Midwives Mel Briggs and Kady Colman with baby.

Australia's first dedicated Indigenous birth centre will be built on the NSW South Coast after $22.5 million was secured for the landmark project in the federal budget.

Maternal deaths of Indigenous women are 4.6 times higher, perinatal deaths 1.7 times higher and preterm births 1.6 times higher, compared with non-Indigenous women.

Preterm birth is the largest contributor to child mortality and is associated with significant childhood disability and chronic diseases in adulthood.

Experts say these figures show disparate health inequities have not changed in the last decade.

The funding for the Birthing on Country Centre of Excellence over the next three years will allow Indigenous women to give birth on their ancestral country with Indigenous midwives in a dedicated facility at Nowra.

The centre will be run by Waminda Women's Health and Welfare Aboriginal Corporation and Charles Darwin University,

Waminda's Dharawal and Gumbaynggirr senior midwife Mel Briggs said the historic investment in Indigenous mothers was years in the making.

"There's a lot of fear and unsafe practices within the hospital system that highlights the need for a standalone Aboriginal-led and designed centre that will accommodate culture and clinical practice," she told AAP on Wednesday.

Senior midwife at Waminda, Melanie Briggs, helps a mother as part of the Birthing on Country program.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney was a crucial advocate for fixing the widening child mortality gap.

"This in itself is a commitment from our federal government that they truly believe in Aboriginal governance and leadership in terms of our own self-determination about health and well-being."

Ms Briggs said the centre will close the child mortality gap by providing ongoing holistic support to mothers from when they fall pregnant until after they give birth.

"Our women are judged, our women are stereotyped, our women do not feel comfortable walking into those (hospital) doors.

"If that is a problem for them to access then they won't go."

"These are the determining factors as to why babies are born prematurely, because it's a systemic problem and what we've had to do to is adapt to ensure our own model that our women are having better health outcomes."

Construction of the centre in Nowra, whose Indigenous population is more than 10 per cent, will start next year.