Every year, the University stages the Conference with the aim of engaging the minds of its current student midwives and recent graduates, while giving them an opportunity to hear from the industry’s eminent speakers.

“The day was a huge success and incredibly inspiring for students and delegates alike,” said Carla Ball, lecturer in Midwifery at the University. “Staff members were inspired to move forward with ideas and thoughts from the conference into the classroom.

“I personally was reminded about the simple things we can do as midwives to empower women and their families to feel confident in the process of childbirth. I shall be taking these thoughts back into the classroom with me to ensure our future midwives are equipped with the necessary skills to forge the future.”

The theme this time around was Alternative Therapies within Midwifery, for which Bedfordshire managed to secure Odent, a French obstetrician and childbirth specialist who, among a number of innovations, devised the idea of water births, skin to skin contact following birth and breastfeeding within the first hour.

Also attending was Katharine Graves – widely considered to be the nation’s leading hypnobirthing specialist. And supplementing both big-name speakers were Sara Randall, a midwife and osteopath at Watford General Hospital, and Louise Coates, a reflexology therapist and newly-qualified midwife from the University.

As well as around forty recently graduated midwives, some of which are University of Bedfordshire alumni, over 200 of the University’s student midwives came along for the day.