Pregnancy, Labour & Childbirth Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

Kim is an advanced clinical practitioner, independent nurse prescriber, registered nurse and registered midwife with additional qualifications in epilepsy, complex pregnancies, child protection, pharmacology, advanced decision making, epidemiology, diagnosis and history taking and research. She is a specialist in antiepileptic drug prescribing management & all aspects of reducing the impact of epilepsy. Since 2000, she has conducted a women with epilepsy service which provides holistic care and treatment support from teenage years to motherhood. In addition, she established and ran for 7 years a thriving community epilepsy specialist nursing service for Southampton and since 2017, a new rapidly expanding secondary care service for Winchester. Kim designed the maternity epilepsy toolkit embedded in the SUDEP (sudden unexpected death in epilepsy) Action professional checklist and focuses professionally and academically on safety and reducing the risk of avoidable adverse outcomes. She is an MBRRACE assessor and represents the Royal College of Midwives on behalf of midwives on the valproate stakeholders committee.

Heather is a Métis Midwife from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She studied midwifery at Laurentian University, focusing on rural and remote practice. Heather practiced midwifery at the Seventh Generation Midwives Toronto for two years before moving to Hay River, Northwest Territories to establish a Midwife practice and help return birthing services to the community. Heather is now living and working in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and is president of the Midwives Association of the Northwest Territories and is a Core Leader of the National Aboriginal Council of Midwives.

Debby Gould is a ‘BirthCare’ consultant providing education, support and counsel to women, partners, families and health professionals. Her goal is to provide transformational care to support education, empowerment and healing. She is an author of the book, ‘How to Heal a Bad Birth – Making Sense, Making Peace & Moving On’ and Co- Director of Birthtalk.org. Originally, a registered nurse she further trained and worked as a midwife, and is now a birth; educator, worker and counsellor, international author, speaker and mother of two children. For over twenty years she has supported women and men in the journey to healing after a traumatic birth, enabling women to make sense of their experience and its impact, offering hope for healing, and providing support and tools to process and make peace with what happened. She has shared in receiving the honour of a Lord Mayor’s Australia Day Community Achievement award for this work. Debby has been Birthtalk’s primary educator and facilitator of Healing From Birth meetings. She has presented for the ACM, Hypnobirthing Australia, Capers, Homebirth Australia, Australian Breastfeeding Association and various other maternal health and midwifery conferences. She guest lectures to Bachelor of Midwifery students at several Universities, and gives presentations for The Australian Doula College, Friends of the Birth Centre, Red Tent festival and other community groups. She also provides professional development for hospital midwives and doulas on the topic of Birth Trauma and how to support women to heal and have better births. She has co-written articles for Birthtalk’s blog “The Truth About Traumatic Birth” and has appeared in the media including radio, newspaper, birth and parenting magazines and podcasts and in the recent birth documentary ‘Birth Time’ as an experienced health professional’s voice to the issue of the importance of birth and traumatic birth.

First and foremost I am a mother, wife and latterly grandmother, my personal life has always largely informed my practice and I am always careful to remember that the women I meet are also like me in that they belong to a family.

I am a freelance consultant midwife one of the first in the UK and formerly employed at 2 very large and diverse maternity units. My career started in the 1970’s in nursing however midwifery was always my ambition and particularly the nurturance of midwifery led care.

I am a practicing psychotherapist interested in the emotional impact of childbirth; in part due to my own mothering experiences and research. I have worked closely with women to understand this phenomenon and researched emotional transition to motherhood.

Raising awareness for maternal mental health and particularly women surviving sexual abuse, I co-founded Sanctum Midwives campaigning on maternity care and sexual abuse. I have worked for many years raising awareness around the issues of maternal mental health and supporting both women and all those who work in maternity care situations. I believe positive mental health is the cornerstone to mothering and self fulfilment.

I have published widely in peer review journals but also in many books. My latest publication is ‘Understanding Anxiety, Worry and Fear in Childbearing Women’ which I edited and wrote 4 chapters. I am currently writing on the issues of child and adult female sexual abuse and its implications.

I care very deeply about women and their babies that they may come through their pregnancy and birth unharmed. I will continue to do this for the sake of midwives everywhere.

Paul Florsheim is a professor of public health at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and a Clinical Psychologist. He received his BA in History from Wesleyan University, an MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, and a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Northwestern University. Dr. Florsheim’s research interests include public health approaches to supporting the development of adolescents and young adults, with a particular focus on healthy relations and the prevention of mental illness. He teaches courses at the that intersection of mental health and public health, including workshops on supporting young parents across the transition to parenthood. Dr. Florsheim has published over 50 journal articles and three books, including "Lost and Found: Young Fathers in the Age of Unwed Parenthood" and "The Young Parenthood Program: A Guide to Helping Young Mothers and Fathers Become Effective Co-parents, both published by Oxford University Press. Among his current research/intervention endeavors, Dr. Florsheim is co-directing the Father Inclusive Prenatal Care study in Chicago, which is funded by the Administration for Children and Families.

Dr. Ruth Oshikanlu MBE is a multi-award winning nurse, midwife and health visitor. A nurse entrepreneur, consultant, leader and parenting expert, she is passionate about supporting vulnerable children and their families to reduce health inequalities and improve their life outcomes. Her previous roles include: HIV specialist midwife, Family Nurse at one of the first pilot sites of The Family Nurse Partnership intensive home visiting parenting programme for vulnerable families, and Nurse Leader of The Lewisham Young People’s Health and Wellbeing Service.

Ruth is a Pregnancy Mindset Expert and supports pregnant women who have had assisted conception or previous pregnancy loss. She is the author of Tune In To Your Baby: Because Babies Don’t Come with An Instruction Manual.

Ruth is a Queen’s Nurse, Fellow of The Institute of Health Visiting, Royal College of Nursing and The Royal Society of Arts. She is the recipient of several national healthcare and business awards; a regular columnist and has published several feature articles in numerous national nursing and healthcare journals.

Ruth was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the New Year 2019 Honours List for being an Ambassador for the Health Visiting Profession and for services to Community Nursing, Children and Families. She is a Churchill Fellow and was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from London South Bank University in November 2019.

Jenny Blyth has been supporting women & parents through natural birth for over 40 years. She is an independent birth educator, birthworker, bodyworker, Associate Practitioner of Ortho-Bionomy, Spinning Babies® Approved Trainer, Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner & Trainer, & Internal Pelvic Release Work Practitioner & Trainer. Her particular focus is on body awareness & body preparation for birth & recovery, & encouraging greater self-responsibility in parents - to realise potential in birth & reduce birth trauma. She specialises in pelvic bodywork for wellbeing, balance, comfort & healing. Other birthwork interests include nourishing birthing wisdom & challenging beliefs & assumptions about birth care. Jenny regularly facilitates workshops in Australia & overseas. She is project co-ordinator for Lao Birthwork, teaching hands-on & emergency skills to health staff in remote areas of Northern Laos. She is also an author – The Down to Earth Birth Book, Birthwork - & filmmaker -The Big Stretch films & A World of Birthworkers. Jenny lives in the Australian bush with her partner, and is the mother of 3 grown children and grandmother of 3.

Jenny Blyth has been supporting women & parents through natural birth for over 40 years. She is an independent birth educator, birthworker, bodyworker, Associate Practitioner of Ortho-Bionomy, Spinning Babies® Approved Trainer, Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner & Trainer, & Internal Pelvic Release Work Practitioner & Trainer. Her particular focus is on body awareness & body preparation for birth & recovery, & encouraging greater self-responsibility in parents - to realise potential in birth & reduce birth trauma. She specialises in pelvic bodywork for wellbeing, balance, comfort & healing. Other birthwork interests include nourishing birthing wisdom & challenging beliefs & assumptions about birth care. Jenny regularly facilitates workshops in Australia & overseas. She is project co-ordinator for Lao Birthwork, teaching hands-on & emergency skills to health staff in remote areas of Northern Laos. She is also an author – The Down to Earth Birth Book, Birthwork - & filmmaker -The Big Stretch films & A World of Birthworkers. Jenny lives in the Australian bush with her partner, and is the mother of 3 grown children and grandmother of 3.

Maureen Campion MS LP is a licensed psychologist and relationship expert. She specializes in the early years of parenting and building securely attached families. Through her weekly newsletter Notes from a Marriage Geek and workshops she offers inclusive, research based marriage and parenting education. She turned her personal birth trauma experience into a passion for guiding couples through their healing and is the author of Heal Your Birth Story. Find Maureen at Marriagegeek.com

Cynthia Good, MS Clinical Psychology, is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Clinical Counselor, author, consultant, and internationally recognized speaker. She is the Director of LifeCircle Consulting, LLC and is Certified in Acute Traumatic Stress Management. She is based in the Seattle, Washington, USA area, where she formerly served as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Midwifery at Bastyr University where she taught counseling skills and is a therapist at Sandbox Therapy Group where she works with children, adults, and families. Cynthia has a strong interest in the emerging field of lactational psychology. She brings the evidence and insights of psychology and lactation consulting to her presentations, providing information and teaching skills that are essential to understanding and effectively responding to the complex psychosocial realities of families living in diverse contexts. The focus of her presentations includes communication skills and counseling techniques for perinatal care providers; equity, diversity, and inclusion; infant feeding rhetoric; perinatal mental health; perinatal loss, grief, and trauma; ethics; serving as an expert witness in lactation-related court cases; cultural competence and humility; vitamin D; and more.

Bonnie Urquhart Gruenberg, CNM, MSN, CRNP, is the award-winning author of Birth Emergency Skills Training; Manual for Out-of-Hospital Midwives, and co-developer of the workshop by the same name. In 2023, her long-awaited seminal work, Birth Emergencies for Community Midwives, will come to press. She has caught more than 2,100 babies to date in the home, in a free-standing birth center, and in the hospital. She currently works for Wellspan Health in Lancaster County, PA. Bonnie has written and illustrated 12 books on topics ranging from midwifery and maternity care to wild horse management. She enjoys painting, photography, and hobby farming.