The 2025 Edinburgh Maternity & Midwifery Festival returned to Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh – and online – on Tuesday 25 November 2025. Alongside a packed programme of learning and debate, the day also featured the presentation of two special Lifetime Achievement Awards recognising decades of leadership in midwifery research, education and practice.
At the close of the morning session of the Festival, hosted at Murrayfield and live-streamed across the UK, the Maternity & Midwifery Forum paid tribute to Professor Mary Renfrew OBE and Professor Helen Cheyne for their outstanding contribution to maternity care in Scotland, the UK and internationally.
Delegates who joined in person and online had spent the day exploring key themes in Scottish maternity care – from breastfeeding and postnatal care to health inequalities, advanced practice and wellbeing – as part of the Edinburgh Maternity & Midwifery Festival 2025 programme. The Lifetime Achievement presentations brought that learning into sharp focus, highlighting the visionaries whose work underpins much of today’s evidence-based practice.
You can watch the full awards presentations and festival highlights on demand via Vimeo below.
Celebrating a trailblazer in midwifery research: Professor Mary Renfrew OBE
The first Lifetime Achievement Award of the afternoon was presented to Professor Mary Renfrew OBE, Professor Emerita, University of Dundee – recognised as a pioneering midwife, academic and advocate whose work has shaped maternity services around the world.
Mary began her career at the University of Edinburgh, qualifying as both a nurse and a midwife before completing one of the earliest PhDs by a midwife, focusing on breastfeeding at the Medical Research Council’s Reproductive Biology Unit in Edinburgh.
After a period working in Canada, she became Director at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU), University of Oxford, where she launched a National Midwifery Research Initiative that helped put midwifery research firmly on the map. Professorial roles followed at the University of Leeds (Professor of Midwifery) and the University of York (Professor of Mother and Infant Health), before she moved to the University of Dundee as Professor of Mother and Infant Health and Associate Dean. She now holds the title of Professor Emerita at Dundee.
Across these roles, Mary has been consistently recognised as an authority on midwifery practice and a champion for women, babies and families. She has advised the World Health Organization, and contributed influential reviews for organisations including the Cochrane Library, NICE, the Human Tissue Authority and the Department of Health.
Her leadership of the Lancet Midwifery Series (2014) provided a global model for high-quality maternity services, underlining that the single most effective intervention for women, babies and families is access to skilled, compassionate care from a midwife. Closer to home, she was a key figure in developing the NMC Midwifery Proficiencies and, most recently, the landmark review Enabling Safe Quality Midwifery Services and Care in Northern Ireland (2024).
Mary’s influence is truly international. She collaborates with colleagues across Canada, New Zealand and Europe, and was the first midwife to be awarded Senior Investigator status with the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). Her honours include:
- The Patricia Martens Award for Excellence in Breastfeeding Research
- Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences – the first midwife ever to receive this recognition
- Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh – again, the first midwife to be honoured in this way
- Honorary membership of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine
- Appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2022
Mary currently helps to co-ordinate the UK network of professors in midwifery and maternal and newborn health, continuing to mentor and support the next generation of midwifery researchers.
Presenting the award, colleagues described her as a “true trailblazer” whose work has “inspired, led and facilitated midwifery research, and transformed the quality of midwifery care and the transfer of knowledge into practice on the global stage.”
Honouring research leadership and women’s experiences: Professor Helen Cheyne
The second Lifetime Achievement Award recognised Professor Helen Cheyne, RCM (Scotland) Professor of Midwifery, University of Stirling; Deputy Director, Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions Research Unit, for her outstanding contribution to research leadership, postnatal care and women’s experiences of maternity services.
Before moving into academia, Helen worked as a clinically-based midwife in Glasgow and in a rural maternity hospital, bringing deep practical insight to her later research. She went on to lead an innovative clinical midwifery research unit at Glasgow’s Royal Maternity Hospital for more than 12 years and was chief investigator on one of the first randomised controlled trials testing the impact of continuity of midwifery-led care in Glasgow in the 1990s.
Today, Helen holds the role of RCM (Scotland) Professor of Midwifery and Deputy Director of the NMAHP Research Unit at the University of Stirling. She leads a substantial programme of research in maternal and child health and co-ordinates the SMART Midwifery collaboration, which brings together lead midwife researchers from across Scotland to develop strategic midwifery research leadership and a coordinated national approach. She also serves as a co-coordinator for the UK network of professors in midwifery and maternal and newborn health.
Helen has previously chaired the Iolanthe Midwifery Trust, supporting research and practice development for midwives and student midwives. Her research is consistently grounded in women’s lived experiences, with particular focus on:
- Postnatal care and women’s choice
- Perinatal mental health
- Reducing the impact of inequality on maternal and child health and wellbeing
In 2020 she was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Midwives, recognising her contribution to midwifery practice, education and research.
The award citation also highlighted Helen’s personal resilience. After surviving a severe episode of sepsis in 2019 and a long period of recovery, she became a trustee of the UK Sepsis Trust, using her experience to raise awareness and improve care. Colleagues describe her as “inspirational, highly committed and someone who just gets on with it,” combining intellectual rigour with warmth, humour and determination.
Catch up on the awards – and share with your team
The Lifetime Achievement Awards were a fitting part of a wonderful day that brought Scotland’s maternity community together to learn, connect and celebrate excellence in maternity care.
Whether you joined us at Murrayfield, watched from home, or couldn’t make it on the day, you can now catch up on the full ceremony and hear the citations in full via our on-demand video:
Share the link with colleagues, students and teams who would be inspired by the careers of Professors Mary Renfrew and Helen Cheyne – and consider who you might nominate for future Maternity & Midwifery Trailblazer Awards.
