Outstanding contributions to midwifery services

A team from Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Liverpool Women’s Hospital has received an award for outstanding contributions to midwifery services.

The team, which operates across Lancashire Teaching Hospitals and Liverpool Women’s Hospital, was awarded the innovation award for “outstanding contribution to midwifery services” at the Northern Maternity Midwifery Festival 2018.

The award was given to community midwives from the two sites for their recruitment to the Strawb2 trial, which looks at stress and wellbeing after childbirth. The trial is funded by NIHR Research for Patient Benefit, and will be completed on the 31st January 2019.

The aim of this study is to look at the effectiveness of self-help material given by midwives to women in preventing post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Women who take part are randomly allocated to one of two groups. The first group are given self-help material, which consists of a leaflet and a web link to a film which aim to explain about ways to cope with stressful situations. Those within the second group receive the usual standard of care. Women in both groups are followed up with a telephone call 6-12 weeks after they have been recruited and are then asked a number of questions in order to see how many have developed post-traumatic stress.

Pauline Slade, Professor in Clinical Psychology and Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the University of Liverpool, is the Principal Investigator for the trial. Pauline said: “This is a fantastic acknowledgement of the hard work of the midwives across both sites. This trial is progressing so well because of their enthusiasm and real commitment to research aiming at improving women’s mental health postnatally.”

Beverley Flanagan, Research Midwife at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, said: “I am really pleased that our team has been recognised for our work on this study. It is really important to us to look at ways to improve birthing experience for our new mothers and their families. Post-traumatic stress can be very damaging when a new mother is trying to bond with her baby so we want to help to reduce this or combat this.”