About me

Since the birth of my son in 2006, I have been involved in maternity care in some way. Training with The Breastfeeding Network and through successful advocacy and lobbying, I facilitated the development and implementation of a breastfeeding peer support programme across Milton Keynes in primary care and hospital settings.

Thereafter, I joined Oxford Brookes University, qualifying as a midwife in 2011, developing extensive physiological birth skills thanks to community and birth centre placements. My passions and interests grew around facilitating positive births for all women, advocacy and the importance of evidence-based practice. My dissertation, later published, explored the phenomenon of freebirthing; expanding my sociocultural-political knowledge and my qualitative research skills.

During my early years as a newly qualified midwife, I completed my MSc at the University of Central Lancashire; advancing my research knowledge, skills and application in clinical practice. I have worked in all clinical settings including the community, homebirth services, birth centres and hospital. Much of my clinical work was with under-served communities in socio-economically disadvantaged areas where I focused my efforts to reduce health inequalities. Additionally, I have been involved in numerous practice-changes to enhance woman-centred, evidence-based care; advocating, lobbying and providing support to implement these changes.

Through my Master’s degree, I carried out my first qualitative study (interviewing women who opted for freebirth) which led me to continue an academic career path. Earning my PhD in 2019, I focused on midwives who support women’s alternative (outside of guidelines) physiological birth choices. A feminist pragmatist study that involved pluralistic data collection and analytical methods- further expanding my research repertoire of skills.