‘Midwifery is a miraculous profession’
Professor Jacqueline Dunkley-bent OBE has helped to bring hundreds of babies into the world. Now, she leads the country’s midwives as the NHS’S first chief midwifery officer.
Midwives play such a significant role in a woman’s life. I realised this when I started getting tapped on the shoulder in the supermarket by people who remembered me for delivering their babies. Sometimes, they would even point to a strapping young teenager next to them and say: ‘And look what happened!’ This always makes me smile.
I grew up in Nottingham, the youngest of four siblings. I didn’t know I wanted to be a midwife until I left school and started training as a nurse. Part of that course included midwifery and I remember thinking that I’d found my calling. The waiting list for the midwifery course was long, so I moved to London to train at Homerton University Hospital. It was a privilege to be part of a woman’s journey into motherhood and I realised that it’s more than a job: you’re there to offer support, trust and even friendship to pregnant women and new mothers.
I also learned that good midwifery doesn’t just mean a happy, safe maternity; it can lead to a positive ripple effect through generations. If you encourage a pregnant woman not to smoke, for example, the person they give birth to will have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease much later down the line.
As I became more senior, I had student nurses and student midwives with me on the wards. I discovered that I had a propensity towards teaching, so I went on to do my teacher training at the University of Surrey and soon became a midwifery teacher and lecturer at Middlesex University. I worked my way up to head of programmes while doing as much clinical practice as possible.
I’ve had a varied, fulfilling career since then, including working as a consultant midwife at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital, during which I helped refugees and asylum seekers access maternity care. I was part of the team that delivered the Duchess of Cambridge’s first two children, which was a great honour. Although it is a great honour to be part of any woman’s birth experience.
In April 2019, I was appointed chief midwifery officer for the NHS; the first role of its kind. The position was created because the profession needed a leader in the same way that nurses had a chief nursing officer. In this job, I have three big ambitions: for the country to continue to be one of the safest places in the world to be pregnant, give birth and transition into parenthood; for there to be a strong leadership in the profession so there is a talented pipeline of midwives passing on the baton; and to encourage more young people to see midwifery as a career choice.
Covid-19 has been a challenging time, but I’ve learned a huge amount about leadership and resilience in the process. Many pregnant women were worried about contracting the virus at hospital appointments, so we worked on a strategy to encourage them to engage with maternity services and feel secure doing so. We advocated for birth partners to be present as much as possible, but had to balance this with the need to ensure everybody’s safety. We are also supporting women from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, who are disproportionately affected by Covid-19.
Being a midwife is all about making pregnant women feel safe. Through pain, anxiety or uncertainty, a midwife is there to provide strength and help her through the journey into motherhood. To me, that’s what is miraculous about the profession.