Professor Jean White CBE, the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales, has been announced as the keynote speaker at the Wales & South West Maternity & Midwifery Festival taking place at Cardiff City Stadium on Thursday 20th September 2018.
Professor White will also be presenting the inaugural Wales & South West Maternity & Midwifery Awards at the event which recognise outstanding achievement and commitment by midwifery and maternity staff across Wales and the South West of England.
Other speakers at the event include Professor Billie Hunter, Professor of Midwifery, Cardiff University; Professor Amy Brown, Associate Professor, Public Health, Policy and Social Sciences, University of Swansea and Mark Williams, Founder, Fathers Reaching Out.
More than 1,000 midwives and health care professionals have already registered to participate in the first ever Maternity & Midwifery Festival to be hosted in Wales.
For midwives unable to attend the event in person the conference is filmed, streamed online and made available to view on demand, completely free of charge.
Looking ahead to the festival Professor White said:
“I am delighted that the Maternity Festival is being held in Cardiff for the first time as it provides an opportunity to showcase the many excellent initiatives in NHS Wales. Cardiff is the base for the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Midwifery Development, and midwives from Cardiff & Vale University Health Board have been awarded RCM Midwife of the Year two years running. I look forward to sharing the approach we are taking in Wales to drive improvements in the quality and safety of maternal and new born care, ahead of the new vision for maternity services that will be launched in December.“
Neil Stewart, Editorial Director of festival hosts Maternity & Midwifery Forum said:
“People think childbirth is unchanging through the ages, but its not, and new mothers are going through a different experience of childbirth from their mothers and grandmothers.
They are likely to be older mothers, who experience rising numbers of caesarean sections, be faced with new prenatal tests, new diagnostic’s and genetic tests and choices, new technology like cord blood banking, they are more assertive and want more choice – they will ask social media for advice as much as their own mother. Maternity Services and midwives will be addressing all these issues at the festival”
For midwives and healthcare professionals who are unable to attend, a live stream of the conference will be available below from 09:15 on Thursday 20th September.
Find out more about the Wales & South West Maternity & Midwifery Festival here.