Maternity Care (OxMater)

An increasing number of trusts in the UK and maternity care providers abroad are expanding birthing pool access to women who have risk factors such as a larger body, a previous CS or having an induction of labour. To understand more about what typically happens to this population, we are establishing an international, multi-professional collaboration to share data that are collected as part of routine intrapartum care provision.

Clinical guidance - we also plan to create a clinical guideline for water immersion during labour and waterbirth.

Collaborative work with Professor Helen Allan at Middlesex University around infertility, preconception and assisted reproduction. Currently developing a book for midwifery and nursing practice around transition to parenthood following IVF. Current joint PhD supervisor for a project on South Asian women's wellbeing after successful IVF.

This research has a particular focus on the care that women with obesity receive during the perinatal period. Research to date on obesity in childbirth has been focused mainly on public health interventions, or on risks to mother and neonate. Our focus is on how these women experience their care throughout pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period, including investigating ways to support normal birth and birth choices. A collaborative PhD studentship, co-supervised by Associate Professor Rachel Rowe from the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit and undertaken by student Claire Litchfield, is investigating use of water immersion by women with raised BMI.

An e-tool developed and evaluated to improve the accuracy of visual blood loss estimations during waterbirth. The resource can be accessed on All4Maternity by maternity services, universities and interested others as a CPD resource for clinicians. 

Working with Dr Sue Pavord, author of the British Society for Haematology guidelines on the management of anaemia in pregnancy, we have scoped the practices of midwives in the UK in relation to anaemia (paper in review). Our findings will inform the development of a resource for midwives, to help improve care.

Midwives’ perspectives of the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on their professional roles and/or ways of working: a qualitative study (UREC LO20213). While immediate responses to UK maternity care during the current coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak have focused on avoidance of virus transmission, for example by social distancing measures, avoiding hospital settings and PPE, the purpose of this study is to investigate how midwives, in their professional jobs, have had to adapt the ways in which they give care and manage their relationships with their patients. We wish to ask midwives if they perceive any benefits to these new ways of working for maternity care in the future and how they consider Covid-19 will shape their practice (and the profession) of the future.

A mixed-methods study that will explore experiences of BAME applicants to midwifery programmes in the South East of England at different points along their journey to registration.

This developing research area explores the experiences of Global Majority students from University application to study midwifery through the interview process and onto the course. An ethnically diverse workforce has been identified as a key component of safe, compassionate maternity care, and yet midwifery remains a predominantly White profession across the Global North. Understanding the experiences of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic midwifery students is key to addressing this disparity. We undertook a mixed-methods study to explore the experiences of all midwifery applicants to University in south east England. Two papers have been published, and a third is in preparation.