Mrs Bernadette Gregory

Bernadette Gregory is a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery at DeMontfort University, Leicester where she has taught midwifery issues, social policy and disability awareness to student midwives for a number of years.

As a nurse and a midwife she developed a particular interest in how disabled women adapt to the challenges of pregnancy. She has undertaken research projects and published work surrounding the issues faced by disabled parents living in the UK.

Bernadette has more recently published work involving Deaf Parents with the introduction of BSL and Deaf Awareness to student midwives as part of their midwifery course. This has gained extensive media interest (including BBC See Hear programme and local and national news programmes). This work has also been successfully nominated for a national award from Deaf Parenting UK in 2011 particularly praising the collaborative work of DeMontfort University working with the voluntary sector.

• Reproduction Research Group
• Nursing and Midwifery Research Centre

Click here for a full listing of Bernadette Gregory's publications and outputs.

• Paper published in Disability, Pregnancy & Parenthood International Journal (January 2012).

• Parents with disabilities
• Equality and diversity issues
• Ethnicity
• Fatherhood
• Social policy and how it affects women and families
• High risk pregnancies.

Having spent many years working in health care settings and then many more teaching pre and post registration midwives it is clear that many things have changed in that time. Midwives and maternity services have to respond and adapt to a more culturally diverse population. With changing demographic profiles more women with increasingly complex health needs are presenting for care and are often well informed about their rights and have high expectations of NHS services.

Teaching commitments include helping students address issues surrounding equality and diversity, including disability rights, ethnicity and how social policy decisions affect women and their families.

My research interests have engaged with women as partners in their care and by involving fathers and voluntary organisations it is hoped we can better understand the lived experiences of service users and respond accordingly where there are deficits but also to disseminate best practice.

• RGN
• RM
• ADM
• Diploma in Adult Education
• BA
• PGCEA
• MMID.

• BSC (HONS) Midwifery
• BSC (HONS) Clinical Midwifery

National Deaf Parenting UK Award
Best Practice of Working with Deaf Parents award, London November 2011.

Royal College of Midwives/UCU.

• 1982 State Registered Nurse
• 1985 State Registered Midwife
• 1988 Advanced Diploma in Midwifery
• 1991 University of Nottingham Diploma in Adult Education (F/T ENB funded)
• 1994 BA (HONS) Health Studies De Montfort University Leicester
• 2001 Postgraduate Certificate interim award Masters in Adult Learning & Teaching M.A.L.T. course) De Montfort University Bedford 2001
• 2008 University of Sheffield Masters in Midwifery (MMid) E learning course.

• 13 December 2006 “Introduction to Islam” study day
• 05 September 2007 “Making Inter professional Education Effective” De Montfort University
• 19 June 2008 “Every Family Matters” study day at the Royal Society of Medicine London
• 27 October 09 “Supporting Cultural and religious diversity in Higher Education” DMU
• 05 March 11 “Inclusive support for parents with learning disabilities” Mencap/ACT and NCT
• 22 March 11 Action Deafness conference “Making Deaf families Visible in Leicester” report on Parenting Programme – interdisciplinary agencies involved.

• September 2009 – present - External Examiner for pre registration Midwifery Kingston & St Georges University London.
• 2010 - Collaborated in adaptation of an American textbook for a British readership. Published as Maternal- Neonatal Care Made Incredibly Easy.
• 2009 – 2010 Reviewer for dppi organisation contributing to the publication of “Pregnancy, birth and early parenthood – a guide for physically disabled parents” in November 2010.
• Reviewer for MIDIRS - International publication and collection of resources available online and in hard back format http;//www.midirs.org
• Reviewer for next Cochrane database book on Pregnancy & Childbirth edited by G.J. Hofmeyr et al by Wiley Publishers

• 2008 - EMHWD funded project awarded to engage with local parents living with a disability. Parent narratives created from their stories and used as educational tools throughout the Faculty as an online E learning resource as part of the TIGER JISC funded project.
• 2010 - Helped organise and undertook Deaf awareness and Introduction to BSL classes at DMU in association with local Action Deafness organisation facilitated by myself and Dr Joanna Downes, Programme Parenting Manager at AD.
• 2011 - RIF bid successful and monies awarded to create a research proposal entitled, "A qualitative study exploring Deaf parents' lived experiences of using maternity and neonatal services across the UK.”
• 2011-2012 Working with Jacqui Williams on creating midwifery specific OER materials to use as part of MORE JISC funded project.

• 2011 - RIF bid successful and £802.50 awarded to explore the experiences of deaf women using maternity services. Collaboration with Action Deafness Leicester and Queens University in Belfast and potentially University of Leicester. (Principal Investigator)

• Reviewer for MIDIRS /NCT - International publication and collection of resources available online and in hard back format.
• Reviewer for Cochrane database book