Siobhán Waterfield – Calm + Connected

Upon leaving school at the tender age of eighteen, I had little idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. However, I undertook a bachelors in human genetics in Cork, Ireland, with little thought to where it may lead. Upon graduating, I realised I would ultimately prefer a clinical role with real world contact with patients. With a strong history of medicine, nursing and midwifery in my family, I decided to return to education in my mid-twenties to undertake a midwifery degree and moved to the UK to begin the journey to registration. I undertook my midwifery studies at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading and took my first qualified post at the John Radcliffe, Oxford. Both hospitals were fantastically forward-thinking places to work, sitting at the forefront of maternity care, research and development in the UK.

However, with maternity services becoming a more challenging landscape by the day, I no longer felt able to afford patients the care that I so passionately wanted to provide. Therefore, when the opportunity arose to pursue additional training as a Health Visitor (or to use the official title, a Specialist Community Public Health Nurse), I jumped at the chance and qualified in January 2023. To be a Health Visitor means to comprehensively support families with children under five years of age with all elements of their health and wellbeing including milestones and development, infant feeding and providing up to date public health advice.

My dream has always been to offer a refined, personalised and holistic service to both expectant parents and those with young babies to include a full KGHypnobirthing antenatal course, workshops to aid families with colic & reflux, introducing solid food and toilet learning as well as eventually expanding into forming a social support network for new parents.

The moment of true inspiration for me to start working on my dream came with the birth of my daughter earlier this year. She was born at home with the help of the fantastic Leicestershire home-birth midwives. I was very lucky to have excellent support from them in pregnancy and immediately afterwards, however within two weeks they had discharged us and we were left to our own devices, as is the usual way of things. I had always known there was a gap in support and services, however since experiencing it for myself, it became all the more apparent and I hope to do what I can to fill that gap. Please follow Calm + Connected’s updates on Instagram @calm.connected.parents and watch this space!