Welcome and Introduction to Optimise2014

Prof Cecily Begley and Dr Katrien Beeckman

Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and Vrije Universiteit, Brussel

Prof Begley, a registered nurse, midwife and midwife teacher, was the inaugural Director of the School of Nursing and Midwifery in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Since 2004, she has held the post of Chair of Nursing and Midwifery, leading the maternity care research team in Trinity College.

Her main research area is normalising birth. She is at present co-ordinating (with Prof. Mike Clarke and Deirdre Daly) the MAMMI study (Maternal health And Maternal Morbidity in Ireland) and leading an FP7 Health-funded study on increasing vaginal birth after caesarean section (OptiBIRTH).