Preterm Birth Specialist Midwife

Job Summary

Preterm birth (PTB) is defined as delivery at less than 37+0 week's gestation and is a common complication of pregnancy comprising around 8% of births in England and Wales. It is the most important single determinant of adverse infant outcome with regards to survival and quality of life.

Babies born preterm have high rates of early, late, and post‑neonatal mortality and morbidity and contributes to an estimated to cost health services in England and Wales of £3.4bn per year.

The Preterm Birth Midwife will work collaboratively as part of a multidisciplinary team and will play a key role in co‑ordinating the care and support of women who are at increased risk of preterm labour, with suspected or confirmed preterm labour, or having a planned preterm birth (i.e. due to fetal growth restriction, pre‑eclampsia or other clinical reason). This role will require a weekly clinical commitment providing antenatal care to women/birthing people at risk of preterm birth in the antenatal clinic setting.

The Preterm Birth Midwife will participate actively in local and regional networks, teaching, and research to improve education and implementation of Preterm Birth pathway. They will also work closely with the Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) to co‑design services to ensure that pathways are supportive and equitable for women and families accessing maternity care at UHSussex.

• Support women/pregnant/birthing people at increased risk of preterm birth throughout the antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care continuum.
• Demonstrate strong clinical management and leadership skills which support the Midwifery, MDT and maternity service as a whole.
• Lead and develop services working alongside the nominated preterm specialist multidisciplinary team ensuring consistency and continuity of care for women at increased risk of preterm birth.
• Utilise current and ongoing research and continually develop local preterm birth pathways to progress the service agendas in relation to reducing preterm birth.
• Utilise key reports such as Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle Version 3, and the Department of Health's Safer Maternity Care reports to inform clinical practice within UHSussex Maternity Services.
• Show compassionate behaviour towards women/birthing people and their families, ensuring equality and diversity differences are respected and women and their family are enabled to be partners in their own care.
• Work collaboratively with the Bereavement team should an adverse outcome be expected or experienced, ensuring parents are supported sensitively and appropriately, with onward referral to additional support and/or bereavement counselling as required.
• Participate in on‑call rota as per the needs of the service.
• Provide expertise in preterm pregnancy management options including prophylactic vaginal progesterone or cervical cerclage procedures, services and support.
• Be responsible for the management of individualised care to a defined group of mothers and babies using the assessing, planning, implementing and evaluating process within a multidisciplinary framework.
• Facilitate midwife‑led clinics, face‑to‑face, telephone and online facilities as appropriate to enable collaborative multidisciplinary communication.
• Be confident in communicating with professionals at all levels in Primary, Secondary and Tertiary care settings.
• Participate professionally when having challenging conversations or delivering unwelcome and often unexpected bad news in an informative and compassionate way.
• Act as an advocate for women, ensuring informed consent for any proposed intervention or treatment, encouraging women/birthing people to be partners in their own care.
• Willing to be a non‑medical prescriber and/or work within pre‑defined Midwifery patient group directives (PGDs) and have knowledge of drug regimens and side effects.
• Have supportive multidisciplinary discussions relating to neonatal care of preterm babies, including location of care and explanation of immediate complications which can result from a baby being born pre‑term.
• Ensure women at risk of preterm birth are supported and able to discuss wishes regarding ongoing…