Sheena Byrom

“As Consultant Obstetrician in senior clinical leadership roles, I have known Sheena for more than 20 years, in roles from matron midwife, through to Consultant Midwife, Head of Midwifery, and now Independent Midwifery Consultant. Whilst currently leading and influencing on a national and international stage, Sheena’s legacy in East Lancashire includes an ethos of partnership between midwives and obstetricians with well embedded midwifery led care and birth centres, service user involvement, and collaborative care for those women who need obstetric care during their pregnancies or childbirth.
In her current role, Sheena is using her influencing and persuasion skills to the benefit of many, promoting women centred maternity care as an (inter) national speaker and providing consultancy services to organisations who wish to improve their maternity services. Her approach is to work alongside people to inspire and motivate them to make the necessary changes by developing themselves as well as their services, and to believe in their ability to make the change. Her consultancy services are sought after by organisations across the country, but she still finds time to produce evidence based articles, books and blogs on childbirth topics, thus spreading her knowledge and expertise even further.
Sheena is an inspirational midwife, a role model not just for midwives now and in the future, but also for obstetricians, to learn, in her own words that ‘childbirth is not risk free, but it isn’t a risky business, safety depends on workplace culture, collaboration and respect’.”

— Catharina Schram - Consultant Obstetrician

“Sheena is a creative, inspirational, transformational leader, who consistently uses a hearts and minds approach to create change in ways that did not seem possible before she became engaged. She is a powerful role model, who leads people to see potential in themselves that they did not believe they had, and then to act on that potential in ways that have been, for some, life changing. She is an effective negotiator, and a tenacious advocate. The combination of her organisational, management and creative skills with her high levels of emotional intelligence makes her a force to be reckoned with”

— Professor Soo Downe OBE

Sheena Byrom OBE

Sheena Byrom is a practising midwife of 40 years, having worked in the NHS for most of that time. Sheena was one of the UK’s first consultant midwives, and as head of midwifery successfully helped to lead the development of three birth centres in East Lancashire. As well as being an international speaker, Sheena provides workshops and consultancy services on respectful maternity care. With her midwife daughter Anna is the proud joint owner of The Practising Midwife journal, and an exciting learning online platform All4Maternity.com

Sheena’s midwifery memoirs, Catching Babies, is a Sunday Times bestseller, and her seminal book, The Roar Behind the Silence: why kindness, compassion and respect matter in maternity care jointly edited with Soo Downe, is being used as a resource to improve maternity care throughout the world. In 2019 Sheena and Soo edited their second book, ‘Squaring the Circle: researching normal childbirth in a technological world’.

Sheena was awarded an OBE in 2011 for services to midwifery and was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Midwives in 2015. In 2016 and 2018, Sheena received Honorary Doctorates from Bournemouth University and the University of Central Lancashire, and in 2017 she was made a Visiting Fellow at Bournemouth University.

Sheena is committed to the humanisation of childbirth, to maximising normal physiological birth processes, and for all women to experience a positive birth.