Fully evaluated study day for clinical skills trainers, obstetricians and midwives.

LOCATION:

The study day will take place at RUH Bath. Please contact Jessica Murray, Quality and Education Lead Midwife, jessica.murray13@nhs.net, for more details about the venue.

DESCRIPTION

This fully-evaluated study day for clinical skills trainers, obstetricians and midwives will provide an engaging and interactive update on professional skills to facilitate physiological breech births, planned or unexpected, and how to teach these skills to others. The focus is on collaborative, multi-professional working to improve the safety of vaginal breech birth using the skills of all maternity care professionals.

The training day will be taught in collaboration with RUH Bath Consultant Obstetrician Vickie Medland.

For practical questions about the content, please contact the Training Coordinator at events@breechbirth.org.uk

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Training will include:

* A research update

* Thorough theoretical and hands-on explanations of how breech babies journey through the maternal pelvis in a completely spontaneous birth (the breech mechanisms), enabling you to distinguish between normal progress and dystocia

* Hands-on simulation of complicated breech births and resolutions, using narratives and videos of real breech complications, to enable you to practice problem-solving in real time

* Models of breech care that work within modern maternity services

* One year's access to the online training course (https://optibreechacademy.getlearnworlds.com/courses) & video resources following the training

Please ensure you create an account in the OptiBreech Online Academy and access the free OptiBreech Evidence Base 2025 (https://optibreechacademy.getlearnworlds.com/course/optibreech-evidence-2025) online course prior to attending the training.

Facilitator:

Shawn Walker, RM, PhD is a Consultant Midwife for Public Health at The Royal London Hospital. She has researched how to improve competence, confidence and safety in vaginal breech birth for over 15 years. As a previous NIHR Advanced Fellow and Chief Investigator of the OptiBreech Trial (https://optibreech.uk), Dr Walker led the only UK-based multi-centre breech study, a feasibility study of a new care pathway for women pregnant with a breech-presenting baby at term (https://optibreech.uk (https://optibreech.uk)). She has lead the vaginal breech birth and external cephalic version training segment of the RCOG Management of Labour Ward course for the past four years.

References

Walker S, Das S, Stringer K et al. How safe is it to plan a vaginal breech birth with OptiBreech collaborative care?: analysis of cumulative data within the OptiBreech Multiple Trials Cohort (https://openresearch.nihr.ac.uk/articles/3-61/v1) [version 1; peer review: 1 approved]. NIHR Open Res 2023, 3:61 (https://doi.org/10.3310/nihropenres.13500.1 (https://doi.org/10.3310/nihropenres.13500.1))

Walker S, Spillane E, Stringer K, et al. OptiBreech collaborative care versus standard care for women with a breech-presenting fetus at term: A pilot parallel group randomised trial to evaluate the feasibility of a randomised trial nested within a cohort (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0294139). PLoS One. 2023;18(11):e0294139. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0294139

Shetty SS, Walker S, Fox-Rushby J, Managing uncomplicated singleton breech pregnancy using ‘OptiBreech collaborative care’ pathway: early economic model and value of information analysis (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jval.2025.01.013), Value in Health (2025).

Davies SM, Hodder A, Walker S, Bale N, Vincent H, Dasgupta T, et al. The OptiBreech Trial Feasibility Study: A Qualitative Inventory of the Roles and Responsibilities of Breech Specialist Midwives. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jmwh.13728) Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health. 2025 (online early view).

Vincent H, Walker S, Hodder A, et al. Barriers and facilitators for implementation of OptiBreech collaborative care: A qualitative study as part of an implementation process evaluation (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2024.101656). Women and Birth. 2024;37(5):101656. doi:10.1016/J.WOMBI.2024.101656

Walker S, Spillane E, Stringer K, Meadowcroft A, Dasgupta T, Davies SM, Sandall J, Shennan A, Batish A, Davidson L, Das S, Magurova L, Haroun G, Meates C, Houghton G, Le Grys H, 2023. The feasibility of team care for women seeking to plan a vaginal breech birth (OptiBreech 1): an observational implementation feasibility study in preparation for a pilot trial. (https://pilotfeasibilitystudies.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40814-023-01299-x#citeas) Pilot Feasibility Stud. 9, 80. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40814-023-01299-x (https://doi.org/10.1186/s40814-023-01299-x)

Dasgupta T, Hunter, S, Reid, S, et al. Breech spec

Description supplied by the event organiser.