Sheena is a practising midwife of 40 years, having worked in the NHS for most of that time. As well as being an international speaker, Sheena provides consultancy services to both NHS Trusts and to organisations globally; helping to support normal, physiological childbirth. Sheena and her midwife daughter Anna Byrom are the proud new owners of The Practising Midwife, and an exciting online platform All4Materity.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 carejointly edited with Soo Downe, is being used as a resource to improve maternity care throughout the 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, Sheena received and Honorary Doctorate from Bournemouth University, and in 2017 she was made a Visiting Fellow at the same university. Her personal and midwifery related website is sheenabyrom.com.

Alicia is a registered midwife and proud mother to her energetic daughter Mila-Rose.

Alicia raises awareness of the maternal health inequalities experienced by women from marginalised ethnic communities and has written about the ways that decolonising midwifery education contributes to improving these disparities.

Alicia has a special interest in the well-being of maternity staff and is writing a book designed to support student midwives.

She is a midwife, former Secretary General of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), former Executive Officer of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and Director of the Dual Career and Staff Mobility programme at the United Nations. She coordinated the Lancet Series on Midwifery 2014 and was lead author of the international policy paper of this series. She also co-authored the State of the World’s Midwifery reports 2011 and 2014.

She has expertise in policy development, implementation and analysis, operational support to countries, organisational development, workforce assessment, advocacy and communications and capacity building.

Hannah has strong national and international research partnerships, has received 20 grants since 2000, including being CI on three NHMRC grants and an ARC Linkage grant and has had over 150 publications. She has spoken at over 100 national and international conferences in the past 5 years and given invited keynote addresses at most of these.

In November 2012 Hannah was named in the Sydney Morning Herald’s list of 100 “people who change our city for the better” A panellist on the selection panel for the special feature in the (Sydney) magazine described Professor Dahlen as “probably the leading force promoting natural birth and midwife-led care in Australia.” Professor Dahlen was named as one of the leading “science and knowledge thinkers” for 2012.

RGN, RM, H.Dip Midwifery, MHSc Health Services Research, International Fellowship Practice Development, International Officer Midwives Section, Irish Nurse’s Midwives Organisation.