Our Team / Pregnancy information from midwivesonline.com


	*UK's Leading Midwife-Led Website for Expectant and New Parents*

Number of team members: 34

The faces behind www.midwivesonline.com

Catharine Parker-Littler, midwife and founder of www.midwivesonline.com
With over 20 years experience of working with the UK NHS, Catharine Parker-Littler also has extensive research and training experience in the areas of pregnancy and birth. Her career has also included time spent as a practising midwife in Africa. Catharine initially developed midwivesonline as a midwifery-led, one-stop information portal for midwives and related healthcare professionals to access the latest scientific evidence, job vacancies, courses & conferences, info for 'wannabe midwives' and the latest product innovations, all to support career development. However, concerned at the lack of midwifery-led, quality information for parents on the Internet Catharine used her professional experience to develop the 'For Parents' section of midwivesonline.com inviting parents to access information relevant to their experience during pregnancy, birth and the post-natal period.

Teresa Fleming, administrator
Behind the scenes, Teresa, our administrator extraordinaire ensures the smooth running of operations at HQ in Bradford. Her work includes regular contact with advertisers, midwives and parents using the site, as well as keeping our paperwork and accounts up to date. She also oversees projects such as Baby Shows and conferences which the team attend to promote the websites and meet parents.

Georgina Crossley Stretch, web development worker
Following the completion of a HND in Spacial Design Georgina moved to the South of France where she lived for six years. During her time in France she developed clientele in Graphic and Web Design, providing services for local Restaurants, Hotels, Mobile Home companies and Bars. After meeting her husband in France, they moved to Bradford. She is currently finishing a diploma in Web Design and started building healthvisitors.com in May 2005.

Syed Zeeshan Ali, Applications Developer
Syed completed his B.E. in Computer Systems from NED University in Pakistan and worked at NED University as IT Manager for around two and half years. He than moved to the UK and has just completed an MSc in Mobile Computing at Leeds Metropolitan University. He has been involved in different types of projects ranging from computer networks to software development.

Diane Jones, midwife (UK Services)
Diane has been a midwife for 10 years. Her area of expertise lies in promoting both a woman centred midwifery led care philosophy. She currently leads on public health and health inequalities in an inner city area of London. Diane has had a range of publications related to her specialist areas. She is keen to promote informed choice for women based on the best available evidence.

Joanne Daubeney, midwife (UK Services)
Joanne is currently a midwife working part-time within an NHS Trust hospital based on the antenatal clinic and labour ward. She has practised midwifery for 14 years. Screening and health promotion feature strongly as professional interests, and she is passionate about breastfeeding with over 6 years personal breastfeeding experience. Joanne is well aware of the variety of pressures & choices facing women and believes in advocating patient choice, based on both her professional and personal experiences of maternity services. Life is always busy and varied, trying to balance family life (3 young boys, my husband and a dog) and her career.

Jane Jelley, midwife (UK Services)
Jane has twenty years experience as a midwife, during which time she has cared for many families throughout pregnancy, childbirth and the early days with a new baby. Jane is dedicated to women centred care and midwifery led care. She's worked in both hospital and community settings including attending many women during homebirths and waterbirths. She currently works as a community midwife and in a midwifery led birth centre.

Rosie Kacary, midwife (UK Services)
Rosie's journey into midwifery began during her first pregnancy back in 1990 and following the births of 2 more children she embarked on her midwifery training. She spent some time on a busy labour ward, then several years as a community midwife followed where she gained terrific experience looking after women choosing to have their babies at home. For the last two years she has been working as an independent midwife. Rosie believes birth can and should be 'the best thing any woman ever does' and is committed to truly woman centered care.

Helen Chapman, midwife (UK Services)
Helen Chapman lives in Greater London and currently works as a Specialist Midwife at Queen Charlottes and Chelsea Hospital, in the Day Assessment Unit and Maternal Medicine Clinic. Helen is particularly interested in ensuring that high-risk women have the most normal maternity experience that they can achieve. Helen also has experience of clinical research and bereavement care. When Helen is not being a midwife she has a busy life with her partner and four children, all enjoying camping, walking, cycling, the opera and ballet.

Sue Fenwick, midwife (UK Services)
Sue qualified as a midwife in (1996) graduating with a first class BSc (Hons) in Midwifery from Bournemouth University. She also has a BA in Social Sciences from the Open University. Sue has spent most of her working life as a midwife with Salisbury NHS Trust. Her special interests are antenatal day assessment, clinical audit and midwifery research. She has recently completed a Master of Philosophy Research Degree on women's experience of a caesarean section. Sue has three adult children Adrian, Helen and Sarah. Sue enjoys foreign travel with her husband Matt.

Dawn Lewis, midwife (UK Services)
Dawn qualified as a midwife in 1997 and has worked across the West Midlands in a variety of settings within the NHS both in hospital, community and strategic planning settings. Previously she has also worked as a nurse within sexual health services. Professional interests include teenage pregnancy, health promotion and woman centred care, together with the use of information technology to improve health care. Dawn is currently working as a Health Co-ordinator for Children’s Centres within the West Midlands, forging links between the centres, Midwives, Health Visitors and other health professionals and the provision of training and education within maternal and child health for the Children’s Centres staff. Dawn is maintaining practical midwifery skills by working occasional shifts at a local maternity unit.

Caroline Booton, student midwife (UK Services)
Caroline is a third year student midwife at the University of Bradford. Before embarking on her training, Caroline was a primary school teacher and also taught English in Spain. She has two children. Caroline is interested in the internet as a potential learning resource and spent an elective placement at midwivesonline, developing a ‘one stop’ for information, links and support for student midwives. She’s currently using some of those essential links to write her final year dissertation.

Debbie McVeigh, feature contributor (UK Services)
Debbie is a 2nd year student studying at the University of Leeds taking a BA Childhood Education and Culture. As part of her course content, Debbie participated in a 6 week placement developing articles for midwivesonline.com and healthvisitors.com. Debbie interested in the field of midwifery and believed that this placement enabled her to develop lifelong skills that she could use academically and in her personal life. When not studying Debbie likes to spend time with her friends and visiting her family in Belfast

Julie Scott, midwife (UK Services)
Julie has been practising as a Midwife for 19 years now. She trained in Hertfordshire and completed her ADM in Sheffield. She currently works part time in an NHS Trust Maternity Unit, mainly based on Delivery Suite. Julie has great interest, and enthusiasm, in the use of water in labour, and helping women achieve the birth they hope for. She has been part time since having her 3 children Chris, Rachel and Robert. They all share a great passion for football, and spend a lot of time going up and down the Motorway to watch Liverpool play. When Julie has a bit of spare time she loves to read, listen to music, walk, bike and swim.

Frances Byatt-Smith, health visitor (UK Services)
Frances is a health visitor with over twenty years experience and is working part-time in an NHS Community Health Partnership in Scotland. She has a particular interest in helping parents to have a positive experience of parenthood and happy children. She does this throughout her work and in delivering positive parenting programmes. Part of her role as a health visitor is a parenting coordinator in her locality. As well as delivering community-parenting programmes, she trains facilitators to deliver the programmes She is also a qualified specialist practice supervisor for public health/health visiting students. Following graduation as a Health Visitor she studied with the Open University and gained an honors degree in psychology in 1993. Frances is married and has a twenty-year-old son. Her interests include cookery, travel, gardening and art.

Shirley Sowray, health visitor (UK Services)
Shirley lives on a farm in North Yorkshire with her husband Rob and even though she is a 'towny' at heart, she really loves the rural life. She has been nursing for many years, working mostly with children and their families and qualified as a Midwife in 2001 at the University of York. Because of her interest in healthy living and promoting health, she carried out her University Specialist Degree with 'First Class' Honors at Leeds Metropolitan University in 2002. Shirley works 4 days a week in a community clinic and utilising her endless energy stores, she provides a wide range of health visiting services to families and the community. Shirley also holds a great interest in teaching and has recently taken on the role of Community Practice Teacher, facilitating and guiding Student Community Specialist Practitioners of the future. Shirley feels honored and proud to join the team and is excited about helping to support other practitioners and their clients.

Linda Green, health visitor (UK Services)
Linda is a health visitor with 18 years experience, working part-time for North West Leeds PCT. Her particular interests include supporting breastfeeding mothers and working with the child development programme to empower parents to enjoy parenting to the full. She also helps parents to deal with difficult behaviour using a positive parenting programme. Within her health visitor role Linda trains other health visitors to detect postnatal depression as she has a special interest in this area. Linda is married with 3 children. Her interests include running, hill walking and reading.

Gill Martin, pre-school educator (UK Services)
Gill trained to be a teacher in London and spent the first 4 years teaching in an upper school in Lancashire. For the past 6 years she has been the Foundation Stage Coordinator managing teachers, nursery nurses and children aged 3 to 5 years in an inner city school in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Gill have been married to Phil for over 30 years and they have two married children. When her children were born Gill happily became a stay at home Mum for 11 years and when she returned to teaching it was in the Primary sector.

Angela Davy, health visitor and new mum (UK Services)
A qualified Nurse and Midwife before she became a Health Visitor. Angela also teaches Massage, Yoga and Swimming for babies whilst undertaking an MA in Infant Mental Health.

Deborah Caine, midwife (UK Services)
Deborah has been a midwife for nearly 7 years. She is currently a community midwife responsible for a caseload of women. She has several years’ experience of working in many of the busy hospitals in London. She is particularly concerned with providing good quality women-centred care before, during and after birth, recognising that the experience of childbirth can have a long lasting effect on many other aspects of women’s lives. She is also interested in midwifery-orientated research and is near to completing a Masters degree in Health Sciences.

Sara Warren, midwife (UK Services)
Sara originally began studying midwifery with the Massachusetts Midwives Alliance in the USA during the early Nineties when she worked as a doula while raising her own family. She also studied holistic therapies before going on to complete her midwifery diploma in the UK. She has six adult and teenage children and nearly seven years of personal breastfeeding experience. Her main areas of interest relative to the profession are breastfeeding, nutrition and women’s psychological and social issues. She lives in a beautiful rural area of the West Country where she enjoys reading, writing, walking and local wildlife.

Mary Goodchild, midwife (UK Services)
Mary has worked as a midwife for 15 years with occasional breaks in her career for children and further study. Over the last 6 years of her midwifery practice, Mary has specialised in fetal medicine in a regional referral unit in the north west of England. Here, she worked closely with consultants to monitor high risk pregnancies, carry out investigations and provide information and support. Her excellent clinical skills as well as her warm sensitive approach and proven academic ability enabled her to provide a very high standard of clinical care for childbearing women. Mary has taken a break from midwifery and has completed her Post Graduate Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy. She has 2 years experience of counselling in a Primary Care Health Centre and she now provides counselling in a hospital setting for women and their partners who have suffered loss or trauma in pregnancy. She is currently undertaking a certificate in body massage and hopes to incorporate this within a stress management programme. Mary is affiliated with the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists. She is married with 2 children and enjoys running, dancing and reading.

Sonya Murray, midwife (UK Services)
Sonya Murray is the Director of The Baby Gurus Ltd which provides a range of educational services in many forms including Bumpz, an award winning community social project which takes experts directly to the local community. Having launched Babymooning™ (luxury antenatal education for expectant parents) as a concept in the UK late 2006 Sonya now provides regular expert comment for national press and baby magazines. Sonya is an independent teaching midwife, antenatal teacher, HypnoBirthing® trainer and practitioner with many years of experience within a fertility centre. The Baby Gurus have launched a “pregnancy ailment shop” which provides natural handmade and locally produced products for the aches and pains of pregnancy, birth and recovery.

Tash Lawton (UK Services)
Tash is a 31 year old everyday mum of two kids (3 and 1) with a passion for wellbeing and exercise, just trying to create a balanced life. She fell upon pilates roughly 7 years ago and qualified as an instructor in both mat and studio exercises after fifteen hard months training with PICP (Pilates International) in Melbourne. Her specialism was in ante and post-natal pilates and that led her to present on Australian national television for Pilates TV as their pregnancy expert. Since then, Tasha has also appeared and demonstrated at national expos and on the radio.

Annabel Adams, midwife (UK Services)
Annabel has been a midwife for over four years and currently works in a busy NHS consultant led unit giving mainly high risk care to women with special conditions or complications in their pregnancy. She has a particular interest in raised blood pressure and the care of women with pre-eclampsia. The trust has two midwifery-led units and she has spent time in both enjoying all aspects of low risk midwifery care. Annabel strongly believes a women's birth experience can impact on her future life as a mother and is committed to empowering women to have the best birth experience for them whether it be hospital or home based. Annabel has three wonderful children aged 11, 9 and 4. Together they enjoy swimming, bike rides and having fun. In her free time she likes to read, both books and online, and keep fit.

Emma Whapples, midwife (UK Services)
Emma has been a Midwife since 1998 and prior to qualifying, self funded a placement in the Philippines to witness midwifery and healthcare practices in a delevoping country. She has worked in a variety of public and private sector hospitals, and specialised in delivery suite, becoming a delivery suite Co-ordinator 3 1/2 years ago. Her interests include promoting normal birth and waterbirths, whereby she is an Aquabirth Committee member. They pride themselves in providing women who have had previous caesarean sections the opportunity to deliver in the birthing pool using an underwater CTG monitor. Emma is also competent and confident in emergency situations and enjoy teaching 'skills drills' as a practice run to Midwives, Doctors and Students.

Tamsin Oxenham, midwife (UK Services)
Tamsin has 12 years experience as a midwife, having worked in both hospital, community and integrated settings, having a wide experience of home births and waterbirths. She graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Professional Practice in Midwifery from Middlesex University in 2003, and is committed to evidence-based practice. Tamsin is a currently working part-time based on a busy NHS labour ward, promoting normality in pregnancy and birth as is possible for those with high, or low, risk pregnancies in a woman centred, midwifery-led setting. Tamsin leads a busy and varied life with her husband and 2 children trying to fit in camping, swimming, cycling, walking and gardening.

Claire Elsam, midwife (UK Services)
Claire has been practising as a Midwife for over 10 years in both hospital and community settings within the NHS. She has worked in both high and low risk units and gained a huge variety of experience. She is currently working full time as labour ward co-ordinator and bereavement support midwife. Claire feels passionate about her job and feels that midwives only have one chance to make pregnancy, labour and delivery the best possible experience for the whole family. Outside of work she has a keen interest in football, swimming and reading.

Margaret Plumbo, certified nurse-midwife (USA Services)
Margaret (Peg) Plumbo has been a certified nurse-midwife (CNM) since 1976 and a midwifery educator since 1983. She currently teaches in the nurse-midwifery & women’s health nurse practitioner program at the University of Minnesota and maintains a clinical practice in St. Paul, Minnesota at HealthEast Care System.. Peg is a graduate of the College of St. Catherine and received her Master’s Degree from the University of Minnesota. Her areas of interest include contraception, prenatal care and menopause care. When not gardening (or shoveling snow!), baking bread or knitting, Peg enjoys life with her husband of 36 years and getting together with her two children and their spouses (no grandchildren yet but hoping). Peg and her husband enjoy traveling (Britain, Mexico and the west coast of the U.S. are favorites) and showing their Korat cats.

Terry Burrell, certified nurse-midwife (USA Services)
Terry became certified as a nurse-midwife in 1992 after working as a nurse and nurse manager in the areas of critical care and maternity nursing for many years. He returned to academia in 1999 while maintaining a full time practice and received a PhD in Human Biology with a Nursing focus from Concordia Colleges and University international degree program. These studies included extensive course work through Oxford University in Oxford, England. Terry currently works at Dakota Clinic in Fargo, ND as a full scope nurse-midwife. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology with the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Additionally, Terry serves as a clinical preceptor for the University of Minnesota Graduate School of Nursing. Terry resides with his wife and 2 children in Moorhead, MN where he enjoys, camping, reading and family time.

Brielle Stoyke, certified nurse-midwife (USA Services)
Brielle Stoyke has been a certified nurse-midwife (CNM) for seven years, but before that worked as a labor and delivery nurse and doula - for a grand total 13 years working with pregnant women. One of her biggest dreams was to experience pregnancy and birth for herself and now has one daughter, Greta, with her husband Philip. Greta was born at 30 weeks and was in the NICU for six weeks. She weighed 2lbs and 5 oz at birth and Brielle is proud to have breastfed her for 14 months. Out of this experience, and all the years helping women breastfeed, she became a lactation consultant. She is especially interested in breastfeeding and postpartum depression. She has currently taken a position with HealthEast CNMs in St. Paul, MN. When she is not working she is walking her neighborhood, reading books with her book club, talking on the phone and laughing!

Mary Blake, midwife (UK Services)
Mary is a direct entry midwife who completed the 3 year programme with City University, London, in 2005 and has worked at the Royal London Hospital as a midwife on the labour ward and postnatal ward since qualification. She deals with both high and low risk women. Mary has undertaken a Masters in Midwifery and aims to become a university lecturer.

Brenda Docherty, midwife (UK Services)
Brenda has been a midwife for 19 years and feels that this is truly her vocation. She is mother to 4 grown up children and 2 not so grown up grandchildren and enjoys reading, writing, travel and surfing (the net). She is about to undertake a short course in Aromatherapy for Midwives. In 1998 Brenda was awarded the title of Midwife of the Year by a leading UK mother and baby magazine and was nominated for a similar award in 2004. She is presently enrolled in a distance learning course with the Writers Bureau College of Journalism.

Anne Thysse, midwife (UK Services)
Anne trained as a nurse and midwife in Bristol and Bath and spent some time in the NHS in a variety of areas before setting off with a single suitcase on a supposed “one – year” nursing contract in South Africa. By the time she returned nearly 20 years later she had acquired a husband, 3 children, a container load of household goods and had practised as a midwife and gave independent ante-natal classes in both big city and very rural Botswana. Anne’s broad range of NHS experience now includes working on busy labour wards, setting up and leading a case-loading team, specialising in home births and water-births. To improve her knowledge base Anne gained an MA in Midwifery practice and has recently become a Supervisor of Midwives. In her current role as Practice Development Midwife she runs many different training sessions, including promoting breastfeeding and normality particularly in the high risk setting and drills & skills.

For parents of children 0-5yrs - visit healthvisitors.com