Episode 180 Mama Academy a chat with Heidi

Trigger warning Baby Loss

This episode is part of the podcasthon global charity podcast event 15th-21st March 2025. Join me as I chat with Heidi Eldridge, founder of the Mama Academy, a charity dedicated to reducing stillbirths and improving maternal health. Heidi's personal story, marked by the tragic loss of her son Aidan, propelled her into action, grounding her journey in the need to provide essential resources and support for expectant parents. Discover how Mama Academy's innovative initiatives, like Wellbeing Wallets and memory kits, are making a tangible difference in combating the silent epidemic of pregnancy loss.

In our conversation, Heidi shares insights into pivotal strategies employed to enhance awareness around pregnancy complications while supporting emotional well-being in a compassionate manner. With a focus on inclusivity and community engagement, the Mama Academy ensures that essential information is accessible to all, empowering parents in their pregnancy journeys. As we dissect important themes of grief, resilience, and transformation, listeners will find inspiration in how one woman turned her heartbreak into a beacon of hope for countless others.

This episode is not just a story of loss; it's a call to action for parents and healthcare professionals alike to prioritize awareness and knowledge in pregnancy care. Listen in, explore the myriad ways you can engage with this vital mission, and help make an impact in maternal health. Share your thoughts, leave us a review, and consider supporting the Mama Academy. Together, we can make a difference for expectant families everywhere.

To find out more or support the charity please visit:

https://www.mamaacademy.org.uk/

Thank you all for listening, My name is Florence Wilcock I am an NHS doctor working as an obstetrician, specialising in the care of both mother and baby during pregnancy and birth. If you have enjoyed my podcast please do continue to subscribe, rate, review and recommend my podcast on your podcast provider.
If you have found my ideas helpful whilst expecting your baby or working in maternity care please spread the word & help theobspod reach other parents or staff who may be interested in exploring all things pregnancy and birth.
Keeping my podcast running without ads or sponsorship is important to me. I want to keep it free and accessible to all but it costs me a small amount each month to maintain and keep the episodes live, if you wish to contribute anything to support theobspod please head over to my buy me a coffee page https://bmc.link/theobspodV any donation very gratefully received however small.
Its easy to explore my back catalogue of episodes here https://padlet.com/WhoseShoes/TheObsPod I have a wide range of topics that may help you make decisions for yourself and your baby during pregnancy as well as some more reflective episodes on life as a doctor.
If you want to get in touch to suggest topics, I love to hear your thoughts and ideas. You can find out more about me on Twitter @FWmaternity & @TheObsPod as well as Instagram @TheObsPod and e...

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to OBSpod
• 36:45 Meet Heidi Eldridge, Founder of Mama Academy
• 55:30 Aidan's Story: Personal Journey of Loss
• 2:32:10 The Impact of Mama Academy on Pregnancy Awareness
• 9:45:00 New Initiatives: Memory Wallets and Pregnancy Passports
• 12:40:00 Conclusion and Call to Action

Transcript

Florence: 0:00

Hello, my name's Florence. Welcome to the OBSpod. I'm an NHS obstetrician hoping to share some thoughts and experiences about my working life. Perhaps you enjoy Call the Midwife. Maybe birth fascinates you, or you're simply curious about what exactly an obstetrician is. You might be pregnant and preparing for birth. Perhaps you work in maternity and want to know what makes your obstetric colleagues tick, or you want some fresh ideas and inspiration. Whichever of these is the case and, for that matter, anyone else that's interested, the OBS pod is for you. Episode 180, mama Academy a chat with Heidi. So I'm very excited today to welcome Heidi Eldridge, who's the Chief Exec and Founder of the Mama Academy, and it's fantastic to have her on the podcast today and we're releasing this episode for the Podcastathon, which is an international event celebrating podcasts and trying to raise awareness about different charities. So, heidi, thank you so much for saying you'd come on the OBS pod with me and talk a bit about yourself and your wonderful charity, the Mama Academy.

Heidi: 1:33

Thank you for having me. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. I'm always sort of dipping in and out of the OBS pod, so it's amazing that I actually finally get to get to be a guest, so thank you so much for having me.

Florence: 1:43

It's an absolute pleasure. So, heidi, do you want to start by telling people a little bit about yourself and your story?

Heidi: 1:54

Yes, of course. So we need to go back to 2009, which seems such a long time ago now. I was pregnant with my first son and I had a reasonably straightforward pregnancy. I had gestational diabetes, so I would take myself off to the diabetic clinics of every month and they'd check my blood sugar levels and I monitored that at home and they would seem to be very happy with how that was going. And then each evening, once I'd had my evening meal, I'd go for quite a long walk to bring my sugar levels down. That was a bit of a habit and a routine I'd got into.

Heidi: 2:34

And then this particular evening, I was just over 36 weeks pregnant and I had a really sharp pain in my ribs as I was walking. It sort of took my breath away, um, so I stopped walking for a bit and recovered, um, but rather than thinking anything of it and thought of reporting it and going to be assessed and be checked out, I just carried on with my evening. And then the next day was my last day at work, so I was focused on that. We were having a bit of a little leavers do that evening and I had a routine midwife appointment that afternoon, so I popped out to see the midwife and she did her usual checks and she couldn't find the baby's heartbeat when she was listening in. And she said to me you know when was the last time that you felt him kick? And I was like, oh, I don't really know. You know, was it last night before I went to bed? Was it this morning? So, yeah, I couldn't really tell, I wasn't sure. And that's because I was never told to monitor his movements. I never thought anything of it, I just thought when he was moving it was just nice, you know, it's a nice bonding, bonding feeling, um, so obviously, she told me to go up to the hospital. She rang ahead, um, I rang my husband. I wasn't too concerned at this point. He was, he was in a flap, um, and I just kept talking about the works due. You know, I was like, oh, but later, but later, well, let's see, let's see the the sonographer first. So, yeah, I got to the hospital. They were waiting for me.

Heidi: 4:08

Uh, the sonographer came and scanned me and, yeah, our world just completely shattered, um, and since that point, when they said I'm really sorry he's gone, life has been completely transformative. It was never, it was never the same again. So you know that shock and devastation you never quite get over. I remember stretching my eyelids out just thinking I'm gonna wake up from this nightmare in a minute. This isn't happening, right. So yeah, so obviously we had to tell our friends and family. And it was just a real process of life without your child. Yeah, all the um, ifs and maybes and all the dreams that you had that you thought you were going to bring the baby home and put him in his nursery and take him to toddler group with all your other friends. That never happened. So I was told at the time it was just one of those things. Nothing could have been done to prevent his death.

Heidi: 5:18

But once I started to do some research, that's when I was shocked at the UK statistics.

Heidi: 5:25

You know, back then they were really high.

Heidi: 5:27

They were really high over 5,000 babies a year were dying and I thought he can't be the only one. And once I started going to um bereavement support groups and meeting other parents that have been through something similar, there was a real similar theme and a real sort of similar pattern that was happening, um, and parents felt, oh, what if I'd been told this and what if I'd been told that? And then I would have gone in to be checked sooner and they might have been able to deliver the baby sooner, yeah, and so, yeah, I just didn't want Aiden to be another statistic. I suppose I just thought, right, what can I, what can I do about this? So that's when I started to do some work in my local hospital, which was St Peter's in Surrey, and, um, we decided that, you know, maybe we could get some information out to pregnant women sacred pregnancy messages and it kind of spiraled from there really. So that's, that was the. That's obviously the reason why I started up the charity, because I wanted to make a difference.

Florence: 6:38

I didn't want to see other families going through what I had unnecessarily it's such a kind of deeply personal reason but motivates you to do such tremendously important work. So I'm sure, like you know, aidan's name really lives on through through the work you've done subsequently. That must be a really nice sort of legacy feeling, do you think?

Heidi: 7:11

yeah, it is, it is. I think, to begin with, it was my way of being a mother, it was my way of doing something, because I couldn't feed him, I couldn't change his nappy, um, and so this, this kept me active and my real sort of goal at the time when he died was to have another baby. You know, I wanted to, to have that family that I'd desired, um, and so I really focused on trying to have another baby. I, after Aidan, I had a miscarriage at nine weeks, um, and then I had my son, tobiah, and then, after him, I had an ectopic pregnancy and then I was fortunate enough to have my daughter. So so that was it.

Heidi: 8:02

After that it was like, okay, um, that's it. Now we've got one of each. I was very, very fortunate to have her after the ectopic. So when I was pregnant with her, that's when I had the strength, I suppose, to actually start a national charity. Yes, so that's when it really really started. I suppose all the research was whilst I was sort of bringing up my son and as soon as I was with my daughter.

Heidi: 8:32

I was like, right, ok, now is the time to start something. So, yeah, so when I started to raise some funds and I started up a website to raise awareness of different conditions in pregnancy, it was that time that the perinatal institute had just started their gap program to detect growth restricted babies. And, um, it had a real impact in birmingham where they piloted it, and statistics were phenomenal. So I spoke to professor gardosi. I found out lots more information. Um, he showed me how growth restricted Aidan was, because he plotted his measurements on my chart, and that really got me going. I was like, right, let's get on the back of this. You know I want to tell all the trusts in the country about GAP. You know they should all be running this because it's amazing. And so, yeah, I devised a campaign. I called it Made to Measure and Good Morning Britain got hold of it and invited me onto the show, and that was very nerve wracking, let me tell you Wow.

Florence: 9:40

What a way to start.

Heidi: 9:43

I know I was thrown completely into the deep end straight away, but yeah, it was just a real learning curve and I just learned so many things along the way. I then gained the most amazing relationships with midwives and other healthcare professionals, lots of consultants and GPs, and they all wanted to support this campaign. You know, they wanted to get behind me and they wanted to help, and the statistics speak for themselves. You know, um, I was invited to a department of health safer pregnancy steering group and there was lots of people there, lots of charities, and so we all agreed on what the safer pregnancy messages should be.

Heidi: 10:24

And then it was a case of well, how are we going to disseminate these messages? And I thought, well, a leaflet's not going to do it. You get given so many leaflets when you're pregnant. Only really take note of the ones that are relevant to you, such as a particular condition. And so that's when I had the idea of the well-being wallets. Yes, my person consultant at my hospital said that women were just bringing in plastic folders all the time anyway to protect their notes. Yes, so, yes, we launched the Wellbeing Wallets. And then NHS England did a little analysis for me and showed that you know, the trust with the wallets had a faster declining stillbirth rate than the ones without. And that's when the numbers, the stillbirth numbers, in the UK started to decline for the first time that's just incredible.

Florence: 11:15

Yeah, I mean, I think what, what I love about Mama Academy and why it caught my attention is I'm quite a visual person and the well-being wallets. They're so kind of colorful, they're attractive, but they're giving that really key information to mums and parents about when to contact the hospital. You know, if you've got this symptom, get in touch. If you've got that symptom, get in touch, don't ignore it. But it's such a practical way of raising awareness, like you say, because every woman certainly was carrying around a paper set of notes. It's obviously slightly changing now with digital notes, but you know, in my hospital people are still carrying around their scans and so on. So that wallet Brilliant thinking.

Heidi: 12:13

But it's such a simple initiative and everything is written from a positive perspective. You know it's all about informed choice, isn't it?

Heidi: 12:23

You've got to. You've got to look at the pros as well as the cons and have a balanced view. You've got to look at the pros as well as the cons and have a balanced view. I like to think that it's. It's very well balanced and and written in. It's written from a parent, it's from a, from a mom to a mom. Yeah, and they have evolved so much since they began, as you can imagine. Yes, so much more information is is now on there. Qr codes are linked to many different pages, um, and we're so inclusive. You know we've got a page specifically for black and south asian women, because they're at higher risk. Yes, and the colors are for neurodivergent parents as well, and we've been told that it helps to read the writing when they're on those coloured backgrounds. And just last year, we've made our website translatable in 100 languages now, so any information that is on the website you can get in over 100 languages, which is obviously really helpful so to me when you did that.

Florence: 13:26

That's just groundbreaking. I tried a few years ago to get an organisation to put their in inverted commas patient information leaflet into different languages, and it was almost. They were paralysed in terms of how to start. Which leaflets do you start with, which languages do you start with, and how do you make sure that the translations are of an appropriate standard, and all this stuff. They put in place so many barriers. Yeah, I couldn't get it off the ground. And then your website bang. It's all there in so many languages and we use that. You know a lot at work now when we've got women whose first language isn't English, we can signpost them to your website. They're in their own language. The right information that we know is that good quality information, but translated. So I don't know how you achieve that. You make it look easy.

Heidi: 14:43

Certainly wasn't easy, but I always say you know, rome wasn't built in a day and you can't help absolutely everybody in an instant. We don't have a magic wand, yeah, um so, but we want to start somewhere, and so obviously, we started with our information in English, um, and that helps us know what the information is, because I can only read english, yeah, and then you start with one language at a time, basically, so, okay, yes, we're not appealing to everybody, we were only helping, um, you know, women that speak romanian, for example, or women that speak ukrainian, for example, but at least we are helping them and then you move on to the next one, and then you move on to the next one and you build it up, and I think technology these days is moving at the rate of not you know all

Heidi: 15:36

this AI now. Okay, so the standard might not be 100% accurate, but even if it's 90% accurate, you're still going to help 90% of people and so you've got to start somewhere. And it's constantly improving and as it improves, we just update, we update and we update. Yes, um, I couldn't have started the website with what it is now. There's so much information on. Yes, I had to start it off with, you know, one, one piece of information. Then, yeah, you add more and you add more, and that's that's how it works. And we're constantly working with the healthcare professionals and midwives. You know they're the ones that drive our work.

Heidi: 16:21

So when they say, oh, you know, we've got a really high population of, I mean, at the moment we're um, focusing on migrants and asylum seekers, for example so we're going to set up a focus group, we're going to work with the organizations that specialize in those communities and we're going to do a big piece of work and, you know, make some resources for them. Yeah, um. So yeah, if people come to us and say, oh, really need this particular resource, in Urdu, for example, then we'll work on it.

Florence: 16:51

Yeah, that's, no problem.

Heidi: 16:53

So, yeah, I don't want people looking at our work and our website thinking, oh, but that's missing. Just tell us, yeah, and we'll work on it. You know we've got an awareness video with British Sign Language on, because we recognise that's a need, yeah, so whatever people need and what they want, please just get in touch and let us know and we'll work with you on something that's suitable.

Florence: 17:16

That's such a brilliant offer, I think that kind of reminds me of so.

Florence: 17:23

One of the things I became aware of is I'm the link consultant for our home birth team and I know that you did an absolutely transformational piece of work in terms of the ambulance calling card and that's something that possibly parents don't see or understand but has incredible impact. So and I can imagine that that came about from midwives saying to you you know, we're at a home birth, we ring for an ambulance and the ambulance control have a very specific algorithm to go through and it's aimed at not pregnancy, so it's obviously abc, airway breathing circulation in kind of normal resuscitation measures and therefore if a woman is, I know she can breathe, she can talk and her heart is going and she's got a blood pressure, she's going to be low down. The algorithmer exactly what those words mean and therefore what category, what urgency of ambulance to send to that situation is again very practical but unbelievably sort of important in in enabling those two groups to actually communicate effectively in a way that hopefully saves lives that's exactly what happened that's exactly what happened.

Heidi: 19:19

Um, and obviously, yeah, they told us the need, they told us the problem that some ambulances weren't getting there between four and eight hours. Yeah, they needed a category one response. So we worked with the ambulance service to say, okay, what are the key trigger words that you need? Yeah, what situations that this would be required in? And then we produce those ambulance cards so they go in the home birth packs for the community.

Florence: 19:43

Yeah, and it's made such a difference because when we're talking to women who are considering home birth, we're able to say to them we have this way of calling the ambulance and we know that the standard is that the ambulance will be with you within seven or eight minutes. And you know, obviously sometimes it takes slightly longer or sometimes it's slightly faster. Sometimes it takes slightly longer or sometimes it's slightly faster, but we can tell them that that's the standard. We're expecting, not, you know, five hours.

Heidi: 20:16

We're actually doing another piece of work at the moment about home births. Yes, because the ambulance service have done like a proper checklist for for the healthcare professionals to discuss with the parents yes that they can um, you know, make adequate adjustments to their homes, etc. In case the ambulance crew do need to come in um, because that can cause a huge delay, especially if you live, I don't know, on the top of a skyrise building or in the middle of nowhere.

Florence: 20:47

So, again, we're going to put that on our website, but it will also be available for the parents, so the parents can look at that checklist when they're making those decisions, and then it'll be translatable as well so everyone has access to it, so that's the piece of work we're working on that sounds fantastic and, yeah, the the translation of that is really important because I know um one my colleagues Francis, our consultant midwife has done some work about different minority groups and different ethnicities not being aware of some of the choices about place of birth, or or not being familiar with the idea of home birth or even birth center birth, and so to have those the information they need to make those decisions in their own language. Hopefully, again, that that improves equity, doesn't it?

Heidi: 21:44

okay, definitely that would be a huge help and so many people that are here pregnant that haven't got English as their first language, so it's so important to try and help them as much as possible.

Florence: 22:01

So what's your advice? I was going to say what's your proudest achievement with Mama Academy, but maybe you can't pick one because maybe there's so many good things.

Heidi: 22:13

There has been so many and I've been doing this for over 10 years now, which is just crazy there has been so many. I mean going back, I remember, like recruiting our first member of staff. You know so, I wasn't on my own recruiting our first member of staff. You know so, I wasn't on my own anymore. Yes, that was amazing. I won the women of the year award. Um, it was fabulous to actually go to an award ceremony and be acknowledged. For all the ridiculous hours that, yeah, I did and the work that you do for someone to acknowledge that, that was just. That was just incredible. Launching our podcast last year.

Heidi: 22:51

I've really, really enjoyed the podcast. We've had so many incredible guests, one of which was yourself, florence, but that has just been um, so much fun and I've learned so much through those podcasts. It has added to my to-do list. Yeah, I guess nothing beats, you know, walking into a hospital and seeing the women carrying your wallets around. That really gives me shivers. Um, and then the testimonies we get off the back of that you know to say this has saved my baby's life. It's just incredible.

Florence: 23:26

It makes it all worthwhile yeah, I had a little look on your, your website, in preparation for today and, yes, kind of baby's lives saved and those little stories that that always does it for me. So you know, when I get a family saying thank you to me or a card or something like that that just acknowledges you made a small difference or played a tiny role in that, it's fantastic, isn't it? So I can imagine the feeling for you walking in and seeing those wallets or having someone get in touch and saying this is what your wallet or what your work made me do and this is the impact. That must be, that must be kind of spine tingling. I would imagine it really is, cause you think oh, you know, you don't know the history.

Florence: 24:18

Yes.

Heidi: 24:19

The reason behind this, and, and even sometimes, my dad. He has to go to the hospital every now and then for whatever, and he'll walk past the antenatal department, yeah, and he'll walk past the antenatal department, yeah, and he'll see the women walking out with the boulders. He always texts me, oh and yeah. It's just so lovely to know that you are. You're helping people, you're making a difference. You know they're using the resources that you've created.

Florence: 24:43

Yes.

Heidi: 24:43

So, yeah, I am really proud of the work we're doing.

Florence: 24:54

So for yeah, I am, I am really proud of the work we're doing.

Heidi: 24:55

So for parents. You mentioned you've got a helpline. Tell us a little bit about that. Yes, so our helpline is available for anyone that's feeling anxious during pregnancy. So, again, you could be a midwife and you're pregnant. You could be pregnant again after previous loss, or you might just be feeling generally fearful about giving birth. We have a midwife on hand that's there to give counselling for you and to help you get through the gap between your next appointment. Basically, it's not to give medical advice, but it's to give counselling. Um, so all the information for our helpline is on our is on our website, and we also have the mama podcast, which is for parents as well as healthcare professionals. Um, so that's on any podcast platform. You just search the mama podcast and look up all the different topics and guests that we've had. Um, we do that every two weeks. A new one arrives on a friday. Um, so you can sign up and, as you're doing the washing up, you can. You can find out lots of interesting pregnancy facts brilliant.

Florence: 25:59

I think the gap between appointments is that's what parents tell me is the really challenging bit yeah, because they're so few and far.

Heidi: 26:11

Well, they can be few and far between.

Florence: 26:12

Yes yeah, and even if we put in extra ones, they tell me, yeah, that that wait for that appointment and then the build up to the appointment, particularly in the time before you're confident in the baby's movements in that middle section, the build-up, and is the baby's heartbeat going to be there, is everything going to be all right at the appointment, and then relief, and then it all kind of starts over.

Heidi: 26:39

So I can, yeah, I can see how that helpline could be so valuable yeah, it's just, it's grounding techniques really, and it's just you know more logic to say, right, what happened last time? Oh so last time was okay, last time was good, last time was so, why would next time?

Florence: 26:58

yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all, yeah, isn't it.

Heidi: 27:01

So yeah, yeah, that's really good.

Florence: 27:04

Yeah, and you've just launched, I think, your bereavement wallets. Do you want to tell us a little bit about them?

Heidi: 27:13

Yes, so as well as our standard wallets, we've just launched our rainbow wallets, which are for parents that are pregnant again after a previous loss, and they contain a mindfulness toolkit inside, mindfulness activities et cetera. But yes, we've also launched the memory wallet as well. So the memory wallets are for any gestational loss, so they're to be given to the parents as soon as they find out they've had a loss. So that could be in any setting. You know, it could be the sonographer department, it could be labor ward, it could be the EPU department, it could be labor ward, it could be the epu. But there's lots of helpful information on there and we've worked. We had a really big steering group of lots of groups and midwives and bereaved parents that helped put that together. Off the back of that you've got a maternity directory on our website under the resources section so you can find your local maternal health department. There's bereavement midwives on there as well as sort of breastfeeding support, stop smoking services, all of that sort of things in the in the directory.

Florence: 28:23

So that links to the memory wallets on how you can get support the memory wallets on how you can get support fantastic, and have those gone out to all the hospitals that already have your wallets, or how are you kind of getting them out there, um?

Heidi: 28:39

so we launched, we had a webinar and there was over 200 professionals that that came to the webinar, which is absolutely fantastic, and we've had orders from 15 hospitals so far. Um, they first started going out last week, so it's all very very new yeah, very, very new.

Heidi: 28:57

So they went out last week to those hospitals and, yes, obviously they're available. We package them up in quantities of 100. They're in smaller boxes, um, but they're available for any trusts that want them. So if they just get in touch we can send you the artwork and then you'll find out all the all the information associated with them. But, yeah, we're really excited for them because you know, parents sort of walk out with nothing, they leave the hospital with nothing and you need that lifeline of where to start. Yeah, and so the memory, what it really helps to guide you where to start, how to tell others, is on there. Yeah, and then all the information about memory, making, funeral options if you're at that stage, even how to return to work, there's a link to that as well.

Heidi: 29:48

So, um, hopefully they'll.

Florence: 29:49

They'll act as a lifeline for those parents yeah, and obviously a lot of the work you have done is kind of based on nhs maternity care because you're you're uk based. I know some of my listeners of the podcast are in other countries. Do you have resources going off to other countries at all or are you mainly UK at the moment?

Heidi: 30:19

we're mainly UK at the moment, but, that said, we are very, very to suggestions. I've just come back from Dubai, for instance, and I've left some wallets out there, of course, of course, because, again, I've got the ability to translate into any language. Dubai is multicultural. There are so many languages spoken there. It's primarily English, but, yes, we're looking at helping America because America has got a really high stillbirth rate, just like the UK has. So we're happy to go out into America, we're happy to go anywhere in Europe, um. So, yes, if people get in touch, um, we can look into that and see how we would make that happen logistically yeah, I know I've definitely got listeners in australia as well.

Florence: 31:14

Yeah, um, as well as a few across europe and other places we can go down on ireland as well. Marvelous why not? Why not? Yeah uh, you're so inspiring, heidi, it's, it's incredible. So we've talked a lot about wallets For women with digital notes. Parents with digital notes, tell us what the alternative to the pregnancy wallet is.

Heidi: 31:46

So that is called a pregnancy passport and the passport is for digital trust. It's a lot smaller than the wallet because you don't have to put the big handheld notes inside. Lot smaller than the wallet because you don't have to put the big handheld notes inside, and in the inside cover is where you would write essential medical information. And this is in case the parent has to transfer to another trust at any time. They might be on holiday, they might have to access care elsewhere and usually their notes can't be accessed because that trust is a different system or hasn't gone digital yet. So by writing the details in there, you know, you know the essential information for them. So that's the main aim of the of the pregnancy passports. So again, they're available nationwide. I think we're doing 300,000 wellbeing wallets at the moment and 75,000 pregnancy passports. That's the ratio of notes to digital.

Florence: 32:46

That's mind blowing. Those numbers, that's fantastic. What's your kind of next project?

Heidi: 32:55

Next project. So the next thing we're working on is improving access to maternity services. We've just written a new page on the website about how to access um midwifery services, because, um, it's actually quite complicated. Yeah, so we're doing that. And then, obviously, we're doing this big piece of work for migrants, asylum seekers, seekers, but also the traveling Roma community as well. Yeah, so we're doing a big piece of work on that. So I'm going to be busy attending focus groups, finding out what their needs, what their challenges are, what resources that they would like and how, how they would like them, and then we're going to work on that.

Heidi: 33:37

So, yes, it's going to be another busy year, but hopefully we'll be helping many more people in the process.

Florence: 33:46

Fantastic. And how do you fund this incredible work? Because you're talking about focus groups and steering committees and staff and all these different. You're juggling multiple different things. So how do you get your funding?

Heidi: 34:05

that's a very good question. Um, so it's through um supporters. So if anyone's feeling inspired to do any challenge at all, it doesn't have to be running um, it could be any, it could be any challenge it all. It doesn't have to be running um, it could be any could be any challenge. It could be um getting people to dress up at work, a cake sale, anything like that.

Heidi: 34:24

Um, it's community fundraising, um, and we also are very blessed at the moment to be having a grant from the national lottery uh communities fund right they've been very generous and they're helping us with a lot of our work, so, and that's how we're funding some of these projects and focus groups etc. But that's that's kind of that's our primary funders and donors at present. So, yeah, anyone that is able to give anything to us and support us in any way it's it's truly appreciated support us in any way it's, it's truly appreciated, wonderful.

Florence: 35:03

So I normally end with a zesty bit, a kind of bit that we want people to take away from this conversation. Whether that's well, it might be one thing, one message, or it might be one message for prospective parents and one message for maternity staff well for parents I would say uh, we've got our helpline, our pregnancy helpline.

Heidi: 35:24

So if anyone's struggling with anxiety, then we have a midwife on hand to give counselling. So there's, there's the helpline. We've also got the mama podcast that they can tune into, because there's lots of different information via the mama podcast that they can tune into, because there's lots of different information via the mama podcast and I think for healthcare professionals it's mainly if you don't have our resources. So the mama well-being wallets, mama memory wallets, please get in touch to, um, you know, to be part of this movement. Um, they're in two-thirds of trusts. Why aren't they in yours?

Florence: 36:03

I was literally gonna say yes. If you haven't got the mama academy wallets, why not?

Heidi: 36:11

yeah, yeah, exactly. We've also got the pregnancy passports for the digital trusts as well, yes if they are digital. It's worth saying that if they are digital, they should have a pregnancy passport, because it's the same as a wallet, so if anyone hasn't got one, why not? Absolutely join in the movement. Please, um contact me and and we can get you um to be part, to be part of this, this um this goal, this mission to reduce stillbirths excellent wonderful.

Florence: 36:44

Well, thank you so so much oh, it's been a pleasure.

Florence: 36:48

It's been a pleasure, I've really enjoyed it it's been really lovely to talk to you and hear more detail about everything you're getting up to, so that was a fabulous conversation with heidi. And if you're getting up to so that was a fabulous conversation with Heidi. And if you're listening to this at any point, but especially if you're listening as part of the podcast-thon, I'd really love you to spread the word both about the Mummer Academy such a wonderful charity but also about the OBSpod podcast and, better still, perhaps support the charity with a donation. I will put a link to their website in the show notes. I very much hope you found this episode of the OBSpod interesting. If you have, it'd be fantastic if you could subscribe, rate and review, on whatever platform you find, your podcasts, as well as recommending the obs pod to anyone you think might find it interesting.

Florence: 37:51

There's also tons of episodes to explore in my back catalogue from clinical topics, my career and journey as an obstetrician and life in the NHS more generally.

Florence: 38:04

I'd like to assure women I care for that I take confidentiality very seriously and take great care not to use any patient identifiable information unless I have expressly asked the permission of the person involved on that rare occasion when it's been absolutely necessary.

Florence: 38:28

If you found this episode interesting and want to explore the subject a little more deeply, don't forget to take a look at the programme notes, where I've attached some links. If you want to get in touch to suggest topics for future episodes, you can find me at theobspod, on Twitter and Instagram, and you can email me theobspod at gmailcom. Finally, it's very important to me to keep the OBS pod free and accessible to as many people as possible, but it does cost me a very small amount to keep it going and keep it live on the internet. So if you've enjoyed my episodes and, by chance, you do have a tiny bit to spare, you can now contribute to keep the podcast going and keep it free via my link to buy me a coffee. Don't feel under any obligation, but if you'd like to contribute, you now can. Thank you for listening.