"Your Body, Your Baby, Your Way"

No one cares more about your baby than you do.  Therefore, I believe you are the best person to make decisions which affect the health and wellbeing of yourself and your baby.  I am here to offer information, guidance and advice, to support the decisions you make together with your partner, and to help you through the tricky bits.

Midwives are experts in normal childbirth.  It is my job to facilitate, encourage, and recognise all that is normal and well about pregnancy and childbirth.  I believe in a woman's inherent ability to give birth and breastfeed her baby.  But those around her have their role as well, and the nurturing a woman receives from her family, friends and midwife, she passes on to her baby.

My service is based on the recognition that a woman's journey to motherhood effects her physically, emotionally, psychologically & spiritually for many years to come.  As an independent midwife, I am honoured to be with you throughout this journey, providing individualised care which suits your needs, hopes and wishes.

View from a Father

When my wife fell pregnant, we were over the moon. We went through the usual process of contacting the powers that be to arrange all the necessary, registrations, checkups etc. Coupled with this, we had decided to move house as well which gave us a further conundrum about continuity of care as we would be moving to a different Health Authority.

Some friends of ours had recently and a baby and they recommended Shawn as an alternative to the NHS.

From my personal point of view, this was the best thing we had ever done. Not only was Shawn totally professional, she was completely in tune with what my wife wanted from her pregnancy. She was available whenever we wanted, and was always there to answer questions as they arose. When we started our NCT classes, it really came home to me what having an Independent Midwife really meant. The difference in the level of care was a quantum leap from what the NHS was able to provide. Please do not think that I am anti the NHS, as on the few occasions we had to deal with the midwives at the local hospital they were first class. It’s just that with Shawn you only deal with her, not whoever is on duty. This is the key thing about an Independent Midwife. Shawn and my wife were able to form a strong relationship and understanding which paid off in spades when the time came for the birth of our daughter.

Our plan was always to have a natural birth at home with no intervention (easy for me to say). As it was our daughter was born at home with no intervention in a little under 6 hours. In the early weeks of our daughters life Shawn was still involved, as her commitment is also for some time after the birth to help where required. The result of our home birth experience is that not only do we have a beautiful baby girl, we have a calm baby who was brought into the world without pressure, panic, stress or unnecessary intervention.

From a purely logical basis, engaging an Independent Midwife is the best thing you could possibly do to assist you in the most important time you will ever have in your life.

I will always be grateful to Shawn for her care and diligence. I would not hesitate to recommend an independent midwife to anyone, and if you live in the right area, Shawn Walker.