Molly O’Brien
With over 25 years of midwifery, 20 of which in clinical practice as a full time midwife in the NHS, I’ve become an experienced midwife. I’m also a birth preparation teacher, an associate university lecturer, have created and teach courses on biomechanics for birth for midwives and other birth related professionals and associates, and back in the year 2000, campaigned for midwife led birth units.
I have been and remain a passionate advocate of physiological birth and midwifery skills throughout my career. The frustration trying to provide woman centred care in the biomedical model largely evaporated when I worked as a team midwife in a maternity unit that, at the time, had the highest home birth rate in the country at 7%. Following that five year period I worked for over 9 years in a midwife led unit. I was fortunate to have attended hundreds of undisturbed physiological births. Working in an environment that supported the physiological process gave me an opportunity to practise and hone the skills that are the essence of midwifery.
Using the knowledge gained in witnessing the varied patterns of physiology unfolding during the birth, improved my ability to recognise when the process became awry. This led to a systematic exploration of the midwifery skills and observations that can help recognise and resolve long difficult labours.
Since 2018 I’ve been sharing and teaching the techniques and strategies and now travel the world teaching gentle and effective ways of resolving labour dystocia using biomechanical positions and techniques.
