Recent Speakers
Speakers at the Sheffield Homebirth Conference 2008
Anne Adamson
Anne has been a midwife for thirteen years, working both within the NHS and as an independent. She trained at the Jessop Hospital for women in Sheffield. She was appointed by both her daughters and daughter-in-law to be their midwife and all chose home birth. She feels this is the greatest compliment your children could ever give you! She runs her own midwifery practice in North Yorkshire and is the author of 'A Midwife’s Guide to Pregnancy'.
Wendy Davis
Wendy has worked as a midwife since 1973 apart from time out to have her four children. During this time she has worked as a clinical midwife, midwife tutor, research midwife and is at present a part time case load midwife focussing on home births in Sheffield.
Amanda Dixon
Amanda Louise Dixon is married with four children. 1 domiciliary birth and three home births. She worked as an NCT antenatal teacher and a Maternity Care Assistant at Salisbury District Hospital and trained as a direct entry midwife at Bournemouth University. Relocated to Essex in 2005. She works in a consultant unit in Chelmsford and a stand alone birth centre in Braintree. She is a firm believer that the ‘Lead Person’ in caring for a woman accessing maternity services, is the woman herself – a midwife is there to facilitate that care.
Pam Dorling
Pam worked as a midwife within the NHS for 27 years prior to retiring in March 2007. Most of those years were spent working in the community in Sheffield, and in 1999 she took a lead in establishing a ’One to One’ case-loading model of care, which aims to give women and their families choice, continuity and excellence in care, and to give midwives an alternative model of working and greater job satisfaction.
Nadine Edwards
Nadine became involved in birth issues over 30 years ago when planning to have her babies at home. She joined AIMS in 1980 and trained as a birth educator in 1982. Since then she has worked with AIMS, run pregnancy and postnatal groups in Edinburgh, co-run the Scottish Birth Teachers Course, and become a researcher. She is the author of Birthing Autonomy: Women’s Experiences of Planning Home Births. She feels passionately that women need to be well supported in their decisions, by midwives and others, with a wide range of skills, who are themselves well supported.
Jane Evans
A midwife in mainly community based clinical practice for more than 30 years, and independent of the NHS since 1991. Has extensive experience in twins and breech, and is the author of the AIMS booklet, ’Breech Birth, what are my options?’ She has lectured nationally and internationally and runs ’A Day at The Breech’ workshops with Mary Cronk and Brenda van der Kooy.
Mavis Kirkham
Mavis has done midwifery research and clinical practice since 1971 and now works occasionally in a rural birth centre and books a few women for home births. Her current research focuses on midwives’ relationship with their work in the NHS. She is also supervising research projects concerning the childbearing experiences of groups of women who experience social exclusion and vulnerability. All this concerns how women cope with birth and bureaucracy and what are the key factors in their coping.
Dot Parry
Dot is an NHS community and birth centre based midwife in Salford. She is also an NCT antenatal teacher. Dot did her midwifery training at Stockport’s Stepping Hill hospital, where the birth pool was often used by women for labour and for birth. In her current post she supports women birthing in water at home and in the birth centre. She also supports students and colleagues who are developing their waterbirth skills.
Chris Warren
Qualified as a nurse in 1978 and midwife in 1982. Chris worked in Croydon, enjoyed community midwifery with lots of home and DOMINO births until her daughter was born in 1990. When she was 7 months Chris went independent to combine good parenting with good/continuity of care midwifery. She moved to Yorkshire in 1993 where getting to know her clients and their families has helped her to develop a respective practice that helps and honours birthing women.
Dotty Watkins
A midwife of 30 years with local, regional and national experience. Her current role is Nurse Director and Head of Midwifery for Obstetrics, Gynaecology, Neonatology and Urology at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She is passionate about providing high quality care and a positive experience for women so that they can have a smooth transition to family life. As a Head of Midwifery she continues to manage a small caseload of women who give birth in a variety of settings.
Ruth Weston
Ruth is a mother of five children, four born at home in a birthing pool. Six years ago she took over the company from which she hired her pools and has developed the business as an ethical company with her husband David. Ruth’s back ground before that was Liberation Theology and Community Organising. Ruth set-up the Choices in Childbirth groups and the Choices Network which operates across West Yorkshire and beyond.