International Health Humanities Network Membership

Originally educated as an historian, my MA dissertation was on the decline of Stourbridge Fair in Cambridge.  My PhD explored the history of the maternity services in Sheffield between 1879-1939.  In 2003 I qualified as a midwife and worked clinically until 2008 when I became a lecturer in Midwifery at the University of Nottingham.  My research interests combine my two areas of expertise, midwifery and history.  I published A Social History of Maternity Care (Routledge) in 2012.  I am now focusing on the trajectory of maternity and midwifery care in England in the period 1960-2000, a time of great flux in the service as care moved from home to hospital and the language of risk and safety dominated the professional discourse around pregnancy and birth.

I am passionate about public engagement and dissemination.  In 2012 I curated an exhibition in Nottingham on midwifery and motherhood which was seen by over 7000 members of the public (http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscripts/2012/01/19/“mothers-and-midwives”-goes-live/).  I have been interviewed for BBC4 documentary on health before the health service (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mytsg).  Most recently I have organised a Wellcome funded meeting exploring the genesis, development and legacy of the seminal report on the maternity services, Changing Childbirth (http://www.rcm.org.uk/midwives/news/changing-childbirth-is-unfinished-business/)