North of England Breech Conference - Speaker Biographies
Sophie Alexander MD PHD
Sophie qualified as an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist in
1978. She developed broad “hands-on” expertise in vaginal
breech birth whilst working in two Brussels hospitals and
currently works as obstetric consultant at a general
hospital serving a mixed, largely disadvantaged
population. In this hospital women are offered “well
selected trial of vaginal breech” when ECV is unsuccessful.
She participated in the Belgium arm of the PREMODA
study. The same definitions of poor outcome were used as
in Hannah Trial, but the choice of trial of VB or elective CS was not random. The good
outcomes of the PREMODA study are often considered the “antidote” to the Term
Breech Trial. Sophie teaches at the School of Public Health and at the school of
midwifery, where the training continues to include skills for managing an “unexpected
breech in absence of qualified consultant”
Sophie also works in the area of clinical research, evaluation and knowledge transfer,
coordinating and participating in projects in Belgium, Europe and Latin America. She is
also involved in issues of perinatal data utilisation, particularly within the PERISTAT
collaboration. As counsellor for the “Office de la Naissance et de l’Enfance (ONE)”, she
liaises with the policy makers and contributes to KT for primary care.
Dr Julia Bodle MD MRCOG.
Julia is a Consultant Obstetrician in Sheffield. A graduate of
Leeds University in 1991, she returned to the city to
undertake her research degree and teach at the Medical
School. She has published original research in the field of
Obstetrics and Gynaecology encompassing laboratory based
observation, clinical practice and medical education. After
completing her specialty training in Leeds she became a
Consultant in 2007. Her clinical interests include, high risk
obstetrics, substance misuse and intra-partum care. She is a
staunch advocate of maternal choice and the demedicalisation of childbirth. During her time in Sheffield she
has championed the wider practice of delayed cord clamping, skin to skin and upright
breech birth.
Sheena Byrom OBE Registered Midwife, MA
Sheena is a practicing midwife, and worked within the NHS for
more than 35 years. Sheena was one of the UK’s first consultant
midwives, and successfully helped to lead the development of
three birth centers in East Lancashire. She currently chairs the
Royal College of Midwives Campaign for Normal Birth, and
lectures nationally on midwifery and childbirth related topics.
Sheena is the Patron of StudentMidwife.Net and a Trustee of the
Iolanthe Midwifery Trust. Her midwifery memoirs, Catching
Babies, is a Sunday Times bestseller, and her absolute passion
is promoting normal birth, and a positive childbirth experience
for all women. Sheena was awarded an OBE in 2011, for
services to midwifery. Sheena actively lobbies for maternity service improvements
through several social media channels. Sheena is currently an Independent Midwifery
Advisor, and her personal website is www.sheenabyrom.com
Jane Evans, Independent Midwife
Jane trained as a Nurse and a Midwife in the United Kingdom and
has been a Midwife in clinical practice for more than 30 years.
Her practice has been mainly community based supporting
women having homebirths.
Jane worked within the UK National Health Service for twenty
years and has worked independently since 1991.She has
developed extensive experience in helping women birth twins
and babies presenting by the breech. Jane is the author of the
AIMS booklet, ‘Breech Birth, What are my options?’ and has
published various articles in the Midwifery press.
She has lectured nationally and internationally and runs ‘A Day at the Breech’
workshops. She has a particular interest in increasing the knowledge and awareness of
basic Midwifery skills throughout the profession.
Mr A Galimberti FRCOG
Lawrence Impey MBBS FRCOG
Mr Impey is a Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and a
subspecialist in foetal and maternal medicine. He qualified in
1998 from Oxford University and UCL, obtaining his MRCOG in
1992, and was awarded the FRCOG in 2007.
gynaecology.
He is the head of the guideline group responsible for the new
RCOG Breech guideline to be released in October. He is widely
published in the areas of labour, breech presentation and the
origins of childhood handicap. He written, edited and
contributed to several leading text books in Obstetrics and
Mr Impey is director of the subspecialty training programme in foetal and maternal
medicine in Oxford. He also lectures regularly locally at Oxford University, nationally
and internationally.
Within the NHS, Mr Impey specialises in complex pregnancy, particularly for women
with multiple pregnancies and those at risk of preterm delivery. He runs the breech and
external cephalic version (ECV) service.
Prof Frank Louwen, Frankfurt, Germany
Awaiting information for bio
Dr Helen Simpson Consultant Obstetrician
Has worked at the James Cook University Hospital in
Middlesbrough as a consultant lead for labour ward for 12
years. She also has interests in risk management, service
provision and maternal obesity. She has been involved
with developing a pre-hospital course in obstetrics for
paramedics - POET with the ALSG, this course now runs very
successfully in both Switzerland and Holland as well as in the
UK. As part of her role as labour ward lead she led a service
improvement to develop a breech clinic and encourages women
to consider both ECV and breech delivery as alternatives to
caesarean section
Dotty Watkins, Nurse Director and Head of Midwifery,
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Dotty has been a midwife for 36 years with local, regional and
national experience. Her current role is as nurse director and
HoM for obstetrics, gynaecology and neonatology at Sheffield
Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and a SoM, too.
Dotty is a member of a steering group piloting ‘Harm Free Care’
in maternity services and is passionate about providing highquality care and a positive experience for women. As a HoM,
Dotty continues to manage a small caseload, which enables her to experience first-hand
some of the challenges that frontline staff encounter.
The Sheffield Citywide 1:1 Team British Journal of Midwifery 2014 Team of the Year
The Citywide 1-1 team was created in April 2012 to provide care for vulnerable women
and those whose choices contravene accepted local and
national recommendations
Nicola Dawes qualified as a Staff Nurse in 2004, and then as a
Midwife in 2007. She has always had a strong passion in
promoting normality and is committed to women centred care.
Nicola worked as a core member on the midwifery led care unit before joining the
community Homebirth Team. She has been a member of the Citywide 1-1 Team from
the beginning and has become passionate about caseloading midwifery. She is a
Neonatal Life Support Trainer and is studying to become a Supervisor of Midwives. She
teaches on the Yorkshire Maternity Emergency Training days and also facilitates
sessions for student midwives.
Helen Dresner Barnes was a Speech and Language
Therapist and Researcher in Child Language prior to
qualifying as a midwife in 2004. She has worked as a
caseloading midwife in Sheffield since 2005 and is deeply
committed to women’s choice. She has led the Citywide 1-1
midwifery team in Sheffield since its inception. She has a
keen interest in vaginal breech as an option for women and
developed skills for breech birth alongside Jane Evans. Helen
has a range of challenging midwifery experience, including
breech and twin home births and works hard to keep women
engaged with the service regardless of their birth choices. She is NIPE qualified and
teaches breech skills as emergency training. Helen also takes a small independent
caseload. She has both midwifery and language publications.
Sarah Martin qualified as a nurse in 1988, working both in
the UK and Australia. Her interest has always been in
women’s health and has worked in that field since 1990,
first in gynae, then qualifying as a midwife in 1994. In 2010
Sarah chose community midwifery, joining a traditional
community team. She went on to join the Homebirth team
and found a love of caseloading as a care approach. Sarah
joined the Citywide Team on its creation and is a staunch
advocate of choice and normality. She facilitates teaching
sessions for student midwives and teaches emergency skills
drills to qualified staff. She will soon be qualified as a NIPE practitioner.