Childbirth Cultures, Concerns and Consequences: lessons from a successful EU COST network

Prof Soo Downe

University of Central Lancashire, UK

Soo is the leader of the EU COST Action on childbirth contexts, cultures and consequences and will present the aims and outcomes of the COST Action at the opening plenary session on Wednesday 9th April 2014.

Soo spent 15 years working as a midwife in various clinical, research, and project development roles at Derby City General Hospital. From January 2001 Soo has worked at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in England, where she is now the Professor of Midwifery Studies. She set up the UCLan Midwifery Studies Research Unit in October 2002. She now leads the Research in Childbirth and Health (ReaCH) group.

She currently chairs the UK Royal College of Midwives Campaign for Normal Birth steering committee, and she co-chairs the ICM Research Standing Committee. She has been a member of a number of national midwifery committees, and she recently chaired the joint Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists/National Patient Safety Agency subcommittee on the nature of evidence for maternity care. She is a member of the UK Medical Research Council College of Experts, and has held a number of visiting professorships, most recently in Belgium, Hong Kong, and Sweden.

Her main research focus is the nature of, and culture around, normal birth. She is the editor of Normal Birth, Evidence and Debate (2004, 2008), and the founder of the International Normal Birth Research conference series.

As well as running the present COST Action and a number of locally funded projects, she is currently the principal investigator on a large funded study, the SHIP trial of the use of self-hypnosis in labour (funded by the NHS RfPB).