This panel is hosted by ACM Midwifery Advisor Tani Paxton and features panelists Bec Jenkinson, Paula Wells and Lauren Kearney.

Panelists
Bec Jenkinson is a maternity consumer advocate and researcher. She has more than 10 years’ experience as a leader in the Australian maternity consumer movement, advocating for high quality, respectful, women-centred continuity of care. She completed her PhD completed in 2018, investigating experiences of refusal of recommended care from the perspective of women, midwives and obstetricians, and now strives to use research to drive systemic change that supports respectful woman-centred maternity care.

Associate Professor Lauren Kearney is a registered midwife and nurse and is employed as a Conjoint Associate Professor in Midwifery between the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, UQ and the Women's and Newborn Services, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. Lauren's teaching expertise is within the postgraduate and higher degree by research areas. Her research track record is strongly focused upon maternal and child health; specifically, within the domains of evaluation of models of care (relating to the perinatal period and early years), intravenous fluid management and access during labour and birth, facilitators to promote a positive and physiological spontaneous vaginal birth, management of postpartum haemorrhage, and strategies for enabling closeness between mothers and infants in the postpartum period. Lauren has strong industry collaborations. The recipient of several competitive research grants in the maternal and child health area, Lauren is passionate about improving the experience of health care for women and children through translation of high-quality evidence into practice.

Paula Wells is a Clinical Midwife within a hospital-based Midwifery Group Practice (MGP) providing antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care to a mixed risk caseload of women. Paula has been part of this team since it began in 2016 and has been there to lead and support student, graduate, registered and clinical midwives to work in this model. It has been one of her greatest achievements to be one of the leaders of this amazing group of dedicated midwives and to see how this program has grown and been embraced by her hospital. Paula was the recipient of ACM’s Midwife of the Year Award in 2022.