Babies too small or too big - what’s the optimal care for mother and baby?

Professor Gardosi is the Director of the Perinatal Institute in Birmingham, UK - a multi-professional not-for-profit organisation he set up in 2013 with the aim to enhance quality and safety in maternity care (www.perinatal.org.uk). The Institute is recipient of consecutive national Patient Safety Awards (2013, 2014 & 2015), the BMJ Award for Clinical Leadership (2015), Queen's Award for Enterprise/Innovation (2016) for reducing stillbirth rates in England, and a Princess Royal Training Award (2018) for its comprehensive education & training programme. Jason’s main interests are fetal growth, antepartum and intrapartum surveillance, perinatal epidemiology and clinical audit.

Dr Anita Banerjee is a consultant obstetric physician and endocrinologist working at Guys and St Thomas’s Hospital, London. As an educationalist, she teaches on all aspects of medical problems in pregnancy at local, national and international meetings. She leads the high-fidelity simulation training for the deteriorating pregnant patient at St Thomas’s Hospital. She has been involved in writing the curriculum for the special skills module in obstetric medicine for acute medicine, maternal medicine and the e-learning module for medical problems in pregnancy for eLfH.  She is a member of several committees including; UK Obstetric Surveillance System (UKOSS) steering committee, London Maternity Clinical Leadership Group and Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK (MBRRACE) assessor and chapter writing groups.

Kemi has been fascinated by birth since the age of 15. She has assisted families with their pregnancies, births and infant care as a doula/birth supporter for 20 years and as a student midwife and then midwife for 10 years. She is a life long learner and loves to absorb and consider families' experiences with birthing. Every experience is different and fascinating.

Ms Kemi Johnson is an independent midwife working in South London and towards the south coast. She is a KG Hypnobirthing teacher as it enables her to reach more parents with knowledge and enable the confidence that they need to safely navigate maternity services towards their best birthing outcomes. Being independent, she is the type of midwife parents turn to if their units are unable to support them in their choices. For this reason, she has gained a lot of experience of parents with what may be considered 'out of guidance' circumstances.

She has seen for herself that the bounds of "normal" are exceptionally wide. If parents are well supported with sound evidence, knowledge of birth physiology and biomechanics, care is individualised and preferably midwifery-led, and continuity of known carer (as proven through thorough and up-to-date research) then our country can look forward to fewer cases of traumatised parents and ill babies, and joyfully anticipate better long-term holistic health outcomes for all.