About me

Since becoming a registered midwife in 2000 I have forged a career dedicated and passionate about practicing as a midwife who aims to identify women's needs and put them first in patient care.

Appointed Specialist Perineal Midwife in 2004 at Birmingham Women's & Children's Hospital, I have continued to develop both the service and midwife specialism in this area. I specialise in childbirth related perinea trauma with a special interest in obstetric anal sphincter injuries (OASIS). I run the only midwife-led OASIS ‘One-Stop’ service in the UK enabling women with OASIS to attend and have the gold standard endoanal scans and counselling service either following the injury or in a subsequent pregnancy to decide on the most appropriate mode of subsequent birth. I also run a postnatal perineal clinic for women who have problems with their perineal wounds in the first six weeks following childbirth.

In 2013 I was awarded an NIHR Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship to pursue much needed women centred, midwifery led research into childbirth related perineal trauma with a speciality in Obstetric Anal Sphincter Injuries (OASIS). In 2017 I was awarded a PhD for my research into OASIS - specifically looking at mode of birth for women who have had a previous obstetric anal sphincter injury.

I champion midwife-led translational research and am proud to have been made a Fellow of the Royal College of Midwives in 2016 in recognition of my continued contribution to research and evidence based care into childbirth related perineal trauma. I am dedicated to retaining my clinical role in order to encourage midwives to take an active interest and involvement with research, explore opportunities and facilitate the application of new knowledge into clinical practice.

I am also a midwifery advisory member of the RCOG Pelvic Floor Clinical Skills Group and a founding Trustee of the MASIC Foundation charity established to support women with anal incontinence following childbirth and improve education and clinical care. I have also formed the first Specialist Perineal Midwife network in the UK and established a collaboration with the Hospital Granollers, Barcelona to improve care for postnatal women worldwide. I am an associate member of the European PEERS group established to provide evidence based best practice teaching for management of the pelvic floor during childbirth and postnatally.