At UCLH our maternity services are here to provide care for you and your baby from the moment you find out that you are pregnant.
During your pregnancy you will have a lead midwife, who will co-ordinate your care with a linked consultant obstetrician. Our aim is to ensure the safety and wellbeing of you and your baby,facilitating a positive maternity journey.
We acknowledge pregnant women, birthing people and their families want to get to know and build a positive relationship with the people who will provide care for them during their pregnancy. Our aim is to provide personalised care, as we work towards implementing small midwifery teams that will provide continuity of care, supporting those who choose to have their babies with us at UCLH.
Find out about different members of our maternity team using the tabs below.
Our midwifery leadership team
The role of the midwife is very diverse and involves more than just delivering babies. A midwife is usually the first and main contact for women during their pregnancy, throughout labour and the early postnatal period but could extend up to eight weeks after birth as they help parents adjust to their new parental role.
As well as being responsible for providing care; midwives must support women to make informed choices about their care. The midwife also works in partnership with other health and social care services to meet individual mothers’ needs, for example, teenage mothers, mothers who are socially excluded, disabled mothers and mothers from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Midwives at UCLH offer antenatal care both in the hospital and the community and a home birth service for women who live in the local area.
Midwives are responsible for their own individual practice and have a statutory responsibility to keep up to date with current knowledge.
Lyndsey started her appointed as Director of Midwifery at UCLH, in Oct 2022.She has held senior roles in clinical leadership and management including: Head of Midwifery at Chelsea and WestMinster, and Consultant Midwife at Kingston. Academic roles have included: Clinical practice facilitator and lead for education.Lyndsey completed her BSc Midwifery in 2002, and has subsequently completed MSc Advanced Practice, and MSc modules in healthcare management and commissioning, in addition to completing a Consultant Midwife fellowship programme.
Lyndsey has contributed to chapters within education texts and co-authored articles in publications.Her passion is celebrating and championing the unique contribution that the midwife and support worker can provide to enabling a safe and respectful culture of maternity care, and ensuring a space is created for families to have the experience and care they need.
Roles she has undertaken in the past are focused on forging a strong maternity team built on mutual respect, and civility and ensuring that no voice is left unheard.
June trained at Kings College London, starting her career at Guys and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, establishing their first case-loading team back in 2003. June then went on to be an Independent Midwife before returning to the NHS as Labour Ward Matron.
She then worked as a consultant midwife supporting women’s birthing experiences before returning to UCLH as Deputy Head of Midwifery. June believes that the act of giving birth by whatever process is an act of immeasurable love, recognising a known midwife can cross boundaries reducing problems, and enhancing the experience contributing to positive parenting.
Nicola trained and then worked as a midwife in Sussex. She came to UCLH in 2015 and has worked in many areas of midwifery before joining the Women’s Health Safety team in 2020.
Nicola is passionate about ensuring women and babies receive safe, compassionate and high quality care, whilst ensuring there is a positive and safe environment for staff to work in.
Ana was formerly the matron for the Labour Ward, Antenatal Care Unit, Maternity Care Unit and MFAU. She has a wealth of experience in different midwifery settings across London. She is passionate about incorporating innovation into health care and to improve our maternity pathways to make them safer and more efficient.
“I am passionate about service improvement initiatives in order to make things better for both women and their families and for the midwives caring for them.”
Arezou is dual qualified as a nurse/ma and midwife. She qualified as a midwife in 1997 and has had the opportunity to contribute to families care in a number of maternity services and settings. She has been in a leadership role last 6 years, supporting safe, effective care, and ensuring women and birthing people’s wishes are heard. "I feel passionate about creating a positive birth experience for mother and their families. A key element of my role as a consultant midwife is to be an advocate and support informed choice regarding their care and preferred birth setting."
Contact details: Arezou.rezvani@nhs.net
Anna joined UCLH in 2011, and has hands on experience of working in all of our maternity departments.
After some time leading the antenatal clinic, Anna has taken on the role of Interim Outpatient Matron, which encompasses the antenatal clinic, birth centre, community midwifery and fetal medicine unit.
Anna believes strongly in promoting equality in healthcare, facilitating choice in childbirth and the importance of high quality, compassionate care.
Constance joined UCLH as a band 6 midwife in December 2008. She trained at Middlesex University, both in Adult Nursing (qualified 2004) and as a Registered Midwife (2007). Constance has worked in all areas of midwifery and her passion is to continue improving women’s experiences and their safety.
In addition, Constance prioritises staff wellbeing as this will influence the care provided to women and their babies.
Luci is the lead midwife for the North Central London Maternal Medicine Network. She qualified as a midwife in 2011 and has worked through a variety of roles including clinical practice facilitator in the Maternity Education team, labour ward co-ordinator and quality and safety midwifery lead for North Central London Local Maternity and Neonatal System.
Luci commenced in her current role in January 2022. She is passionate about developing and highlighting the role of the midwife in maternal medicine and championing equity of care and services. Within her role as co-chair of the national Maternal Medicine Network Midwifery Forum, she helps to facilitate the sharing of best practice and service development whilst encouraging peer support and advocating for the role of the midwife within maternal medicine.
Lianne is the newest member of our senior midwifery team having joined UCLH as lead midwife for education in January 2022. Lianne is a direct entry midwife having focused all her secondary education aimed at achieving this goal, she trained in East London and qualified in 2008. Between qualification and joining UCLH she consolidated her clinical skills in all areas of midwifery care and then worked for many years in a maternity education team. Lianne’s belief is that staff who work together should train together (a motto close to her heart), and she strives to achieve this aim for all our pre and post registration colleagues.
Yaa joined UCLH as clinical research manager in November 2020. She trained as Midwife at St George’s University of London and worked as a clinical midwife before moving to clinical research.
Yaa’s manages the Women’s Health research team who work alongside the wider multidisciplinary teams in women’s health at UCLH and UCL to conduct high quality research into current issues surrounding maternal health, gynaecology, fetal medicine, fertility and neonatology.
She works closely with the Joint research office to ensure that research is delivered safely and in accordance to research regulations. Yaa is passionate about improving health outcomes through high quality research.
Our maternity management
Our senior management team provide strategic and operational leadership for the women’s health division. They ensure we are delivering high quality and responsive services and that patient care and experience remains central to what we do.
Mr Stuart Lavery is the divisional clinical director for women’s health at UCLH. He works as a consultant in reproductive medicine and surgery with a special interest in fertility preservation. He is an honorary associate professor at UCL and also holds honorary academic positions with Imperial College London, ICRF and the University of Oxford. Previously he was medical director and HFEA Person Responsible of IVF Hammersmith for 15 years, and a founder director of the Fertility Partnership. He is currently a founder director of Aria Fertility in Marylebone. His research interests are fertility preservation and preimplantation genetic testing, and has published over 60 peer reviewed academic articles, and presented both nationally and internationally.
Our maternity consultants
A range of specialist consultants may be involved in your maternity care at UCLH. These may include obstetricians, neonatologists and anaesthetists.
An obstetrician is a doctor who specialises in the management of pregnancy, labour, and puerperium (the time-period directly following childbirth). They have a broad range of knowledge and can vary their professional focus. Many develop unique practices, providing high-quality health care for women, for example in fetal medicine, premature births and diabetes. If you have any existing medical problems or go on to develop medical problems during your pregnancy, you will be referred to an obstetrician. Your midwife will continue to provide antenatal care too.
A consultant obstetrician is the most senior doctor who leads and advises a small team of doctors. Some women will see a consultant obstetrician because they require more specialist input. The maternity unit is covered by a consultant obstetrician 24/7, including being on call.
Neonatology is a subspecialty of paediatrics that provides the medical care of newborn infants, especially ill or premature newborn infants. It is a hospital-based specialty, and is usually practiced in neonatal intensive care units (NICU). The neonatologist, as well as others trained in examination of the new-born, provides the routine newborn check of your baby prior to discharge home from the postnatal natal ward.
An anaesthetist is resident in the labour ward at all times. They provide:
- Anaesthesia for caesarean section (planned and emergency)
- Epidural pain relief for labour (24 hour service)
- Anaesthesia for other occasional operations or procedures related to pregnancy, labour and delivery
The team also take referrals to see women in high-risk categories during pregnancy so that detailed plans can be made for anaesthetic care, even if surgery is not planned, to enable planning for emergencies. This would include problems such as diseases of the heart, lungs or nervous system, but also more common problems such as obesity, which is known to cause problems with anaesthesia.
Prenatal ultrasound (also known as ultrasonography) is a common procedure used in pregnancy. It is a technique used for determining gestational age, number of fetuses, fetal heart activity, and the position of the placenta. Most scans will be performed by specialty doctors. If any problems are identified you may be referred either to the Fetal Medicine Unit (FMU) for more specialist input.
