School of Nursing & Midwifery Annual Report 2018

Catherine McAuley School of Nursing and Midwifery, UCC

Dr Patricia Leahy-Warren was awarded a travel research grant to visit Internationally renowned Maternal and Infant Research Centres in Australia

The Story: Patricia’s first place to visit was the School of Human Sciences, in University of Western Australia. Included in the visit was an examination of a PhD thesis with a focus on evaluating the feasibility of a ‘Mummy Buddy Program’. This involved working with External examiner Dr Karen Wynter from Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia whose research expertise is examining the role of fathers in the perinatal period. Both had mutual research interests in the perinatal well-being of parents and subsequent infant and parental outcomes. A seminar was organised where Karen and Dr Leahy-Warren presented to a delegation of researchers and clinicians engaged in perinatal maternal and paternal health. Discussion was generated on the challenges of postnatal care in particular clinicians discussed domestic violence as providing and contributing to maternal mental health concerns in the perinatal period. Continuing from this visit is the preparation of a joint systematic review publication on social support interventions for perinatal maternal mental health. Patricia then moved on to Sydney and her first place to visit was the Research Centre for Midwifery, Child and Family Health (CMCFH) in the University Technology Sydney (UTS). Here she met with midwifery researchers Vanessa Scarf, Georgia Brown, Alison Cummins and Christine Catling. Vanessa is visiting Ireland this summer and it is expected that she will be available to meet with our research group during her visit.

Patricia then moved to visit the Mother Infant & Family Health Research Network (MIFam) in Western Sydney University. This is a vibrant collaborative research network that has a number of nationally funded research projects that impact positively on health outcomes for women in pregnancy and birth, for infants and children, their parents through the early years. The Mother Infant and Family Health Research Network (The MIFam* Network) is led by Professors Virginia Schmied and Hannah Dahlen.

Patricia outside the Centre

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