"This is not just about the impact these proposed changes would have work-wise, but emotionally as well," she said.
She said paramount among those concerns would be planning for any potential transfers from Wanganui to Palmerston North.
"Our LMC working in rural areas like Raetihi are used to planning for this sort of eventuality, getting the mother to a secondary birthing centre because they anticipate there could be some sort of problem at birth.
"The LMC in Wanganui especially will have to re-think the way they have been working and I accept that initially that won't be easy," Dr Benn said.
"They are currently working at a secondary hospital so they probably work within, say, a 30-minute time-frame. Those working out in the rural towns, however, would be planning an hour, two hours or more ahead for a difficult birth."
She said the impact on some of the LMC could not be underestimated.
"Some of them are the sole breadwinners in their family and going to Palmerston North for a birth has major ramifications.
"You've got to remember these LMC will have on average three to six other pregnant women to concern themselves with, so going out of the city presents its own set of problems.
"For example, if the mother is induced, the birth can happen very soon or it could happen two or three days later. The LMC then has to think how long that particular birth is going to keep them away from their home and those other women they are caring for."
The regional women's health service proposal said that the majority of women expected to be at risk or have complications with their birth were usually identified early in their ante-natal period by their LMC and were referred to specialist obstetric care as a matter of course.
Women transferred to Palmerston North would be returned to Wanganui as soon as possible within clinical guidelines.
Dr Benn is not unfamiliar with rural maternity services and is still a practising midwife who works in Dannevirke and surrounding areas regularly.
She said another option the LMC would probably consider would be transferring care to midwives in Palmerston North rather than make the journey.
"What people need to understand, though, is that this is not just about the viability of LMC practices. It's about how we make it as safe as we possibly can for baby and the mother," she said.
She said the proposal threw a lot of "what ifs" into the mix and transportation between Wanganui and Palmerston North was a key.
"We'd be expecting and requiring that we have clear transport and transfer protocols in place from the very beginning," she said.
Dr Benn said the proposal would not only affect the LMC in private practice in Wanganui; the midwives employed at Wanganui Hospital would be affected as well.
"They provided amazing support for the LMC and changing the hospital from a secondary to a primary provider as far as the at-risk births are concerned, will impact on them as well.
"But they've struck this problem before when the service in Wanganui was patchy so they know what things can be like.
She said the overarching objective was to keep the midwifery numbers in the district buoyant.