Katherine Robinson and Paula Barry will present a seminar on ‘The Evidence and Practice of Facilitating Water Birth’ on Thursday 13th October at 2pm.
This will take place on Thursday 13th October at 2pm via Microsoft Teams. Current members will receive an MS Teams invite.
Katherine Robinson
Katherine Robinson started nursing in 1986 and qualified as a midwife in 1994 with water birth experience during training which started a passion for midwifery led care and water births.
Katherine completed her BSc in Professional Studies in Midwifery in 2002 and her PGCE teaching qualification in 2006. Katherine spent 2 years at Queen’s University Belfast as a practice educator.
Katherine has worked in the ‘Home form Home’ alongside midwifery led unit in the Ulster Hospital, Belfast since it opened in 2007, becoming the manager of the midwifery led unit in 2011.The Home from Home unit has seven rooms each with a birthing pool and 974 women birthed in the unit in 2019. Auditing outcomes of all women in their care, the midwifery team work constantly to provide and expand the unique service it offers parents. The unit welcomes midwives and students from Ireland, the United Kingdom and Europe to the unit to gain experience in midwifery led care and water births. Katherine has experience of maintaining and providing midwifery led care in a hospital setting and is well aware of the challenges and practicalities of developing this service for women in a predominantly medical culture.
Paula Barry
Paula commenced her career as a General Nurse in Cork. She worked as a nurse in a variety of specialities in Ireland, the UK and Australia. In 2003, she undertook a Higher Diploma in Midwifery at the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital and since then has completed a BSc and MSc in Midwifery at Trinity College, Dublin. Through her experience, Paula has become passionate about all aspects of Midwifery practice. She embraces the philosophy of pregnancy and birth being a normal, healthy, life event for most women and constantly strives to protect and promote the autonomous role of the Midwife. Paula believes that the profession of midwifery is a unique and extremely privileged one.
Paula in her various roles throughout the Coombe Hospital, has been instrumental in many developments to enhance the provision of maternity care. She likes to think ‘outside the box’, and push the boundaries ‘safely’, always keeping the woman and baby at the centre of care. Paula ensures she maintains clinical credibility by facilitating a weekly Midwife clinic, which she has done since 2008.
Paula believes involvement in research is pivotal for the midwifery profession. For this reason, one of her greatest achievements is being midwife lead on the first water immersion study in the ROI, which compared water to standard care for labour/birth; Barry et al. Prospective cohort study of water immersion for labour and birth compared with standard care in an Irish maternity setting. BMJ OPEN. https://doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2020-038080. More recently, she co-authored a second paper titled: Women’s experiences of water immersion during labour and childbirth in a hospital setting in Ireland: a qualitative study. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.midw.2022.103278
Paula’s vision is for other units in Ireland to commence offering a water immersion service to women as an option for labour/birth. Paula believes midwives are corner stone for exemplary maternity care and therefore need to be clinically, professionally and politically visible in-order to be truly recognised and for real change to take place.
If you haven’t already joined the network, you can join for free by completing the membership form here.