Tagged / midwifery

Four BU students at national midwifery conference

conferences, PG research, Women's Academic Network

This week four postgraduate midwifery students from Bournemouth University attended the Royal College of Midwives annual Education & Research conference in London.  Their contributions included studies on: (1) ‘A Unique Approach to Smoking Cessation During Pregnancy’ by Ph.D. student Louise Barton; (2) Investigating how women make decisions about prescribed psychiatric medication use during pregnancy by M.Res. student Jessica Correia; (3) Harnessing midwives’ research delivery expertise to encourage medics’ participation in research’ by M.Res. student Susara Blunden; and (4) ‘Personalised care for women of advanced maternal age, from conception to postnatal care: A mixed-methods study’ by Ph.D. student Joanne Rack. Joanne was also at this conference in her capacity of the newly appointed Editor-in-Chief of The Practising Midwife. 

Congratulations to these postgraduate students and their supervisors.

Profs. Vanora Hundley & Edwin van Teijlingen

 

Prof Marahatta promoting BU-Nepal collaboration

international, Publishing, writing

On Monday 9th March Prof. Sujan Marahatta visited Bournmouth University (BU) to speak about ‘Strengthening BU-Nepal collaboration AND Nepal’s experience of competency-based health professional education’.  Prof. Marahatta is the Director of the Medical Education Commission in Nepal overseeing the education of health professionals in 15 areas including Medicine, Physiotherapy, Nursing and Midwifery. He spoke about long partnership between Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) and BU.  This partnership is formalised in a Memoradum of Agreement (MoA) and over the years it has included joint research projects, staff-student exchanges (funded by ERASMUS+ and Turing scheme) and offering guest lectures at each others institutions.

One of the jointly conducted studies which Prof. Marahatta highlighted was the work on CPD (Continuous Professional Development) in nursing and midwifery in Nepal.  Research on CPD started a decade ago and culminated in several papers [1-4]. The research was combined with sustained advocacy and stakeholder engagement, and resulted in the Nepal Nursing Council (NNC) formally introduced mandatory CPD as a requirement for nursing and midwifery re-registration earlier this year (15 January 2026).  The National Guideline on Continuing Nursing and Midwifery Education (CNME) CPD for Nurses and Midwives refer to our work conducted by academics based at Bournemouth University.  This is the foundation for one of BU’s REF Impact Case Studies for 2029.

Amongst other studies, Prof. Marahatta also highlighted a recent publication which was  jointly authored between BU’s professors Clark and Hundley and himself on pain catastrophising in nulliparous women in Nepal, the importance for childbirth [5].  Prof. Marahatta’s  visit was held in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences (HEMS) in the Bournemouth Gateway Building.

References:

  1. Simkhada B, Mackay S, Khatri R, Sharma CK., Pokhrel T, Marahatta SB., Angell C, van Teijlingen E, Simkhada P. (2016) Continual Professional Development (CPD): Improving Health Prospect15 (3):1-3.
  2. Khatri, RJ, van Teijlingen, E, Marahatta, SB, Simkhada, P, Mackay, S and Simkhada, B. Exploring the Challenges and Opportunities for Continuing Professional Development for Nurses: A Qualitative Study with Senior Nurse Leaders in Nepal. Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences. 2021 7(1):15-29. 
  3. Simkhada B, van Teijlingen E, Pandey A, Sharma CK, Simkhada P, Singh DR (2023) Stakeholders’ Perceptions of Continuing Professional Development among Nepalese Nurses: A Focus Group Study Nursing Open.10(5).
  4. Simkhada B, van Teijlingen E, Sharma C, Pandey A, Simkhada P. (2023) Nepal needs Continuing Professional Development for Re-registration in Nursing and Midwifery Journal of Nepal Health Research Council, 21(60):541-42.
  5. Clark CJ, Marahatta SB, Hundley VA. (2024) The prevalence of pain catastrophising in nulliparous women in Nepal; the importance for childbirth. PLoS ONE 19(8): e0308129. https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308129.

A different way of external examining

international, PG research, writing

Last month I had the honour of chairing a committee to review the first three years of the MSc in Midwifery in the Netherlands.  Since all Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in the Netherlands offer this joint degree there is only one in the country.  This national collaboration meant there were very few academics working in the field of midwifery who can claim to be independent.  All midwifery educators/academic midwives are employed by one of the HEIs participating in the joint Master’s degree. Hence, two of the four committee members, including myself came from abroad.

Today’s blog highlights that there is a different way to the UK version of external examining as a form of quality control in Higher Education.  In the UK each undergraduate programme, or year in a programme, or module has its own external examiner, who is appointed typically for three years to act as independent assessor.  External examiners typically reviews all education aspects of the programme/module and discuss their assessment examiners’ meetings held at the host university.  For more details on external examining in the UK, see also:”Acting as External Examiners in the UK: Going Beyond Quality Assurance” [1].

The Netherlands and Flemish-speaking Belgium has a single cross-national organisation which is responsible for assessing the quality of higher education degrees.  This organisation, the NVAO [Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders], has an accreditation system that covers Associate Degree, Bachelor’s, and Master’s programmes in the Netherlands.   First, there is the need for initial accreditation of a new programme, valid for a period of six years.  Secondly, the accreditation of an existing programme, which, following a positive assessment, is valid indefinitely, as long as the programmes passes the six-yearly assessment by a panel of independent experts (peers engaged by the NVAO).  Between these periodic assessments there is no equivalent of the UK’s annual external examiners’ meeting.

Reference:

  1. Poobalan, A., Simkhada, P. & van Teijlingen, E. (2021), “Acting as External Examiners in the UK: Going Beyond Quality Assurance“, In: Sengupta, E., Blessinger, P., Ssemwanga, A. & Cozza, B. (Ed.) The Role of External Examining in Higher Education: Challenges and Best Practices (Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, Vol. 38), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 13-23. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2055-364120210000038002

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

BU PhD student newly appointed journal editor

Women's Academic Network, writing

Congratulations to Joanne Rack, PhD student (Clinical Doctorate) in the Faculty of Health , Environment & Medical Sciences (HEMS) who has been appointed this month as the new Editor in Chief of The Practising Midwife.  Joanne is doing her Clinical Doctorate in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH) specialising in personalised care for women of advanced maternal age (AMA).  This PhD study is matched-funded by University Hospitals Dorset (UHD) NHS Foundation Trust and Bournemouth University.  Her PhD is supervised and supported by Profs. Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen at BU and former BU Professor Ann Luce (who has recently moved to the University of the West of Scotland) and Dr. Latha Vinayakarao in Bournemouth Maternity Hospital.

Well done!

Prof. Vanora Hundley & Edwin van Teijlingen

New Nepal scoping review on maternal & neonatal health

international, open access, Publishing, Women's Academic Network, writing

Today, Discover Public Health, published our latest academic paper on maternity and neonatal care in Nepal [1].  Our latest paper ‘A scoping review of interventions to improve maternal and neonatal care in Nepal‘ is lead by Dr. Sharada Prasad Wasti at the University of Greenwich and co-authored by Bournemouth University’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.

For this scoping review we found 418 studies, and twenty were included, which used various interventions that aimed to improve maternal and neonatal health. Five overarching interventions were identified: (1) community-based maternal health literacy; (2) health facility strengthening, including health staff training, (3) mobilisation of female community health volunteers (FCHV) for birth preparedness and identifying danger signs; (4) mobile health messaging, and (5) involving husbands in improving the uptake of maternal and neonatal care. Most interventions were a mixture of activities with a combination of interventions rather than a single intervention.

The authors note that no single intervention is sufficient on its own; indeed, a combination of approaches is needed to improve the uptake of maternal and neonatal care services.

This scientific paper in Discover Public Health is open access and, therefore, freely available worldwide to anybody with internet access.  Interestingly, the journal has added an AI generated summary, despite the fact that we as authors had provided a perfectly useful abstract.

 

Reference:

  1. Wasti, S.P., van Teijlingen, E., Adhikari, N. Morgan, J. (2025) A scoping review of interventions to improve maternal and neonatal care in Nepal. Discover Public Health 22, 855 . https://doi.org/10.1186/s12982-025-01241-x

New BU midwifery paper

PG research, Publishing, student research, writing

Congratulations to HEMS colleagues on their recently published paper in MIDIRS Midwifery Digest. This new qualitative publication focuses on the ‘Barriers to the uptake of healthy eating messages by Black African immigrant pregnant women living in the UK: midwives’ perspectives’ [1].  The paper grew out of Aniebiet Ekong’s PhD research on this topic which was supervised by Drs. Pramod Regmi, Juliet Wood, and Jaqui Hewitt-Taylor.

 

Reference:

  1. Ekong A, Regmi P, Wood J, Hewitt-Taylor J. Barriers to the uptake of healthy eating messages by Black African immigrant
    pregnant women living in the UK: midwives’ perspectives M    IDIRS Midwifery Digest, 35(4):  372–383.

Further CMWH contributions to 2026 ICM congress

conferences, international, Women's Academic Network

Congratulations are due to BU’s Midwifery Lecturer Laura Stedman whose abstract ‘The impact of neonatal intensive care admission at term following gestational diabetes mellitus: A neglected area’ has been accepted for presentation at the 2026 ICM (International Confederation of Midwives) in Lisbon, Portugal.  Also congratulations to BU’s Lead Midwife for Education, Dr. Juliet Wood.  She been accepted to present a workshop at the ICM Congress under the heading ‘Supporting student midwife confidence to facilitate physiologic birth: A workshop for clinical and academic faculty‘.  The latter workshop is a proper international collaboration as the team also includes colleagues from Northern Ireland, the USA, Poland and Australia.

The ICM works with midwives and midwives’ associations globally to ensure that women and gender diverse people have access to a midwife’s care before, during and after childbirth. We advocate for midwives to practise the full scope of our profession, providing education, sexual and reproductive health services and newborn care.

Congratulations to both!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

Early labour research accepted for ICM 2026 congress

conferences, international, Women's Academic Network

The ICM, the International Confederation of Midwives, holds its congress every three years, and the next one will be in Portugal in summer 2026.  Dr. Dominique Mylod had her abstract accepted with the title ‘Supporting women in early labour: An interdisciplinary, digital approach’, whilst Prof. Vanora Hundley’s ‘Can we identify women who will need additional support in the early (latent) phase of labour?’ abstract was also accepted.  Both Dr. Mylod and Prof. Hundley are based in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH) in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Science.

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

BU to contribute to international midwifery workshop in 2026

Awarded & submitted bids, international, Women's Academic Network

This week Dr. Laura Iannuzzi, who is Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health, was informed by the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) that the proposed workshop ‘Rest or arrest? A workshop to advance knowledge and skills to support women, families and teams when dealing with a slowing or pausing of labour’ has been accepted for the ICM conference in 2026.  This workshop in Portugal will be run in collaboration with Laura’s international colleagues Prof. Marina Weckend and Ms. Anna Maria Rossetti.  

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMWH well represented at International Labour and Birth Conference

The Centre for Midwifery and Women’s Health was well represented at last week’s International Labour and Birth Conference with presentations from Sara Stride, Dominique Mylod, and Vanora Hundley.

Sara StrideSara was presenting her doctoral work where she has used appreciative inquiry to explore midwives’ experience and processing following the occurrence of Obstetric Anal Sphincter injury (OASI) during spontaneous vaginal birth. Sara said that she found the conference and networking opportunities “inspiring and helpful for her PhD.”

Dominique and Vanora brought their prototype app, which has been designed to support women in the early phase of labour. This was well received by attendees and the next step is to evaluate its implementation into practice.Dom and Vanora

Dominique’s attendance at ILB Conference 2025 was supported by an award from the Science of Birth Research Cluster, University of British Columbia.

Megan Perkin’s work exploring breastfeeding experiences of women with visual impairment was presented as a poster. Unfortunately Megan was not able  to attend due to her clinical commitments, but Vanora was on hand to answer any questions.

 

New BU midwifery publication

NHS, open access, Publishing, Women's Academic Network, writing

Congratulations to Laura Stedman in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH) on the publication of a new paper in the international academic journal Midwifery.  This new paper ‘Then they’re not there. Women’s experiences following admission of their newborn to a neonatal intensive care unit‘ [1], has been co-authored with two fellow midwives: Associate Prof. Catherine Angell and Prof. Vanora Hundley.

The paper reports an online study into the experiences of UK women been diagnosed with Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) whose baby was admitted to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at or shortly after birth. The qualitative analysis identified two themes: ‘experience’ and ‘understanding’; the former had five sun-themes and the latter was based on three sub-themes. A lack of understanding and knowledge was identified, with calls for enhanced education and joint decision making. Women recalled feelings of grief, isolation and stress as a result of the admission. For many, this experience was traumatic with lasting effects. For babies born at term, feelings of surprise and separation were paramount, in contrast to those born pre-term.  The authors concluded that there is need for more education and improved material to support for those facing this outcome. Future research should also focus on reducing the incidence of admission to NICU for women who have received a diagnosis of GDM.

Well done!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Reference:
  1. Stedman, L., Angell, C., Hundley, V. (2025) Then they’re not there. Women’s experiences following admission of their newborn to a neonatal intensive care unit, Midwifery [online first]

BU’s Dr. Iannuzzi editing special issue HEALTHCARE

international, Publishing, Women's Academic Network, writing

Dr. Laura Iannuzzi, based in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health, is acting as one of the two guest editors of a Special Issue for the international journal Healthcare.  This Special Issue called ‘Advancing Midwifery and Nursing Practice: Equity, Inclusion and Integrated Care’ currently has a call out for contributions. Details can be found by clicking here!

Healthcare is looking for authors to submit papers exploring strategic directions for midwifery and nursing in advancing inclusion, equity, and health.  This Special Issue is open to topics such as integrated care strategies and long-term care models, professional nursing roles, evidence-based interventions, and community-engaged approaches. The proposed theme aligns with Healthcare’s focus on multidisciplinary research and practical solutions that improve health outcomes across populations.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Strategic frameworks and global policy implications for midwifery and nursing;
  • Educational innovations to promote equity and development;
  • Evidence-based clinical practices focused on underserved populations;
  • Community health initiatives and participatory care models;
  • Coordinated interprofessional models and organizational frameworks that promote inclusive and equitable care;
  • Impacts of global crises (e.g., pandemics, conflict) on midwifery and nursing practices.

The Guest Editors are Dr. Simona Fumagalli and Dr. Laura Iannuzzi

Second paper for CMWH MRes student

PG research

Congratulations to Maryam Malekian, a MRes student in CMWH, who has just published her second paper as part of her integrated thesis in the highly respected journal Midwifery. Maryam’s paper reports her recently completed scoping review looking at knowledge and attitudes of nulliparous women regarding breastfeeding.

Malekian M, Irving M, Hundley V (2025) Factors associated with breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes among non-pregnant, nulliparous women of reproductive age: A Scoping review. Midwifery, vol 148, September, 104511

The protocol was published earlier this year in MIDIRS Midwifery Digest. She has also presented this work at the Maternal, Parental and Infant Nutrition and Nurture Unit (MAINN) Conference in April.

Malekian M, Hundley V, Irving M. (2025) A scoping review protocol of factors influencing breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes among non-pregnant, nulliparous women of reproductive age. MIDIRS Midwifery Digest, vol 35, no 2, June, pp 179-182.

Digital Health and AI: Paving the Way for Health Equity in Maternal and Infant Care

The long awaited 10-year health plan for England emphasises the use of digital technologies and the aspiration to “make the NHS the most AI-enabled health system in the world”. This requires expertise in artificial intelligence and data science, but interdisciplinary collaboration is also essential if we are to make this a reality.

The Maternal and Infant Health Equity Research Centre (MIHERC) aims to do this by bringing together experts in maternal health, behavioural science, AI and digital health to help drive innovative solutions through co-production and real partnership, ensuring better outcomes for all women and babies. MIHERC is led by Professor Hora Soltani at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) in collaboration with key partners including Bournemouth University (BU), the City of Doncaster Council and South Yorkshire Digital Health Hub.

Alongside Professor Vanora Hundley, who has been appointed as a Capacity Training and Development Lead, Professor Huseyin Dogan and Prof Alessandro Di Nuovo from MIHERC will be co-leading the cross-cutting workstream titled “digital, data, monitoring, evaluation and implementation science” as part of the NIHR Maternity Disparities consortium. This workstreams aims

– to identify and test trusted, reliable AI technologies for deployment by the NHS to help reduce disparities;

– to develop and refine equity monitoring, real-world evaluation and implementation science methods for use in maternity disparities research, with a focus on enhancing their robustness and practical application;

– to embed advanced analytic and digital tools and implementation frameworks into maternity disparities research to improve the rigor and impact of studies on equity; and

– to build a community of practice within and external to consortium to develop analytical, methodological, and implementation science capacity.

The BU key academics are: Huseyin Dogan, Vanora Hundley, Edwin van Teijlingen, and Deniz Çetinkaya. Please do get in touch with the MIHERC team for further information.