Pelvic Floor Changes and Healthy Childbirth: The good, the challenging and the unknown

Professor Lisa Kane Low

University of Michigan

Lisa Kane Low PhD CNM is the Associate Dean of Clinical and Professional Graduate Programs and former Director of the midwifery education program at the University of Michigan. She holds joint appointments as an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing, Department of Women’s Studies and Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is also the President of the American College of Nurse-Midwives.
She is a true blue having completed two degrees at University of Michigan. She has her undergraduate degree in nursing and doctorate in nursing/women’s health and women’s studies from the University of Michigan. Her Master’s degree in midwifery is from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has been in full scope midwifery clinical practice almost thirty years in the hospital setting.
Lisa’s research focuses on advancing evidence based care practices during labor that promote optimal outcomes for childbearing women. She conducts interdisciplinary clinical research funded by NIH aimed at answering questions about the ways in which women can best be supported during the process of normal birth particularly during second stage labor. She is a member of the interdisciplinary, internationally recognized pelvic floor research group at UM and is part of the specialized center of research (SCOR) in the Department of OB/GYN focused on investigating prevention of birth related trauma to the pelvic floor. Her independent NIH funding has supported studies looking at the relationship of second stage labor (the pushing phase) and pelvic floor changes for women post birth. She has extended this work to also explore the challenges of incontinence in women across the lifespan, again with a focus on prevention.