The sites listed below are participating in the OptiBreech 1 Study and are able to support women seeking to receive care for a vaginal breech birth.
- Leicester Royal Infirmary
- Lister Hospital
- Liverpool Women’s
- Royal London Hospital
- Kingston Hospital
- University Hospital Wales
- East Surrey Hospital
- Chelsea and Westminster Hospital
- West Middlesex University Hospital
- Birmingham Women’s Hospital
- The Royal Oldham Hospital
- Prince Charles Hospital
- Royal Cornwall Hospital
- Royal Sussex County Hospital
- Princess Royal Hospital
- Worthing Hospital
- St. Richard’s Hospital
- University Hospital Lewisham
- Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, including Chelsea and Westminster Hospital (NW London) and West Middlesex University Hospital (Isleworth); PI: Shawn Walker; contact Honorary Consultant Midwife Shawn.Walker1@nhs.net
Birmingham Women’s; PI: Louisa Davidson; those who wish to self-refer should contact the PI directly, Consultant Midwife louisa.davidson@nhs.net
Cardiff and Vale University Health Board; PI: Ms Pina Amin; those who wish to self-refer should contact the PI directly, Consultant Obstetrician Pina.Amin@wales.nhs.uk
Kingston Hospital, Kingston-upon-Thames (SW London); PI: Emma Spillane; those who wish to self-refer should contact the PI directly, Consultant Midwife E.Spillane@nhs.net
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust (SE London); PIs: Consultant Midwife Alice McInnes (Lewisham, alice.mcinnes@nhs.net) and Consultant Obstetrician Marieke Bolten (Greenwich, mareike.bolten@nhs.net)
Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust; PI: Gillian Houghton; those who wish to self-refer should contact the PI directly, Consultant Midwife Gillian.Houghton@lwh.nhs.uk
Prince Charles Hospital, Merthyr Tydfil; PI: Mr George Haroun; those who wish to self-refer should contact the PI directly, Consultant Obstetrician george.haroun@wales.nhs.uk
Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust; PI: Ms Helen Le Grys; those who wish to self-refer should contact the PI directly, Consultant Obstetrician helen.legrys@nhs.net
The Royal Oldham Hospital; PI: Midwife Amy Meadowcroft; those who wish to self-refer can contact amy.meadowcroft@pat.nhs.uk
Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, Redhill; PI: Lead Clinical Midwife Kate Stringer; those who wish to self-refer can contact the team on Sash.breechclinic@nhs.net
Sites currently in the set-up process:
University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust; PI: Mr Eamonn Breslin, Breech Clinic Lead: Ms Natasha Archer; e-mail for breech service: Breech@uhl-tr.nhs.uk
The Lister Hospital, Stevenage; PI: Ms Mona Modi, Breech Lead Midwife: Consultant Midwife Rose Bedford; those who wish to self-refer should complete the Early Bird Referral Form on the hospital website
The Royal London Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust; PI: Ngozi Njoku; those who wish to self-refer should contact the PI directly, Consultant Midwife Ngozi Njoku, N.Njoku@nhs.net
(PI = the lead researcher on this project at the Trust, known as the ‘Principal Investigator’ in research lingo)
I am following this project with high interest. I am an Australian midwife, who has cared for a number women birthing their breech babies, but have met a lot of resistance and lack of support from both Obstetricians and midwives.
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Thank you Meredith. Unfortunately, this is what many midwives and obstetricians who support vaginal breech births have reported. We hope that we can find a solution that will help people support vaginal breech births more safely and feel comfortable offering this as an option. We welcome your input.
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Hi Shawn, the OptiBreech Project will be so valuable. Will all the participating sites be in the UK?
Is there any opportunity for birth units outside of the UK to be part of the research.
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Hi Meredith.
At the moment, this is a UK-based study, as it is funded by the National Institute for Health Research. We’ll have our hands full with this for a while, but once we develop the database and ensure that we are collecting useful and thorough data, we may be able to consider how to enable sites outside the UK to participate. Often, this means a research team from the non-UK country would need to obtain funding and approval to conduct the study in that setting. Multi-national research is very complicated! But of course we are open to speaking with any research team who would like to explore doing this and very happy to share our protocol and lessons learnt as collaborators.
Warm Regards,
Shawn
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Thanks so much for sharing these details! I’m currently 34 weeks pregnant with a breech baby and hope to refer and participate at one of the sites (Kingston) if baby is still breech in a couple of weeks, if I find that there aren’t skilled attendants willing and available to support physiological birth in my local NHS trust area. Thank you so much for the work that you are all doing to build the evidence base for safe clinical practice, and improving teaching and learning in this area where knowledge and skills are being so rapidly lost. It is also amazing to see the the videos of breech birth to see clearly that female bodies are indeed capable of birthing breech babies fantastically. This is a real encouragement for me personally, and builds confidence in my ability to birth my baby.
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Thank you Gabriella & good luck for your upcoming birth. Glad you are willing to be a part of this research 😊
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I am a midwife at St Helier Hospital in Carshalton. I would really like to participate in this study as I am particularly interested in breech and supporting true evidenced based consent from women, supporting them with VBB. My matron is also very experienced in breech and we have been discussing creating a team that specialise in supporting midwives to facilitate VBB. Are we able to get involved?
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Hi Chloe — Yes, this is possible. I will e-mail you. ☺️ Shawn
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