Reply to Comment on: Patterns of transfer in labour and birth in rural New Zealand.

did not collect data on women who may have booked for birth at the rural unit but were transferred out of the model during their pregnancy. There is a very well developed antenatal screening process in place in New Zealand that requires the Lead Maternity Carer (LMC) to refer women with risk factors to an obstetrician, thus only low-risk women are eligible for care in rural or remote rural units 3,4 . Our focus was on the intrapartum transfer rate for women and babies eligible for intrapartum care and birth in a rural unit – that is, these were all low-risk women without identified pregnancy complications.