Case study: Celebrating International Day of the Midwife with Kate Robinson

As we celebrate International Day of the Midwife 2024, Kate Robinson, a senior research midwife in Yorkshire and Humber, tells us more about her career, why she first got involved in research and her passion for making things better for women and their babies.

I am a Senior Research Midwife and also the Communications Lead for the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Yorkshire & Humber. I know what you are thinking… how has a midwife ended up in communications? Well, it’s one of those situations where all your previous roles and experiences finally come together to complement each other nicely in one job.

I graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2004 with a degree in Events Management and worked in various roles before moving into Public Relations for a Property PR firm in Leeds. I loved PR and Marketing but I felt like something was missing and I wanted to help make things better! Fast forward 10 years and after the birth of my son I decided to become a Midwife. I left PR, Marketing and Events behind and enrolled at Bradford University to do Midwifery.

I felt like something was missing and I wanted to help make things better

I loved Midwifery but it wasn’t long until I stumbled across research delivery - learning that evidence shows clinically research active hospitals have better patient care outcomes. More importantly, a review of over 20,000 women* who took part in women’s health studies found that they had 25% better odds of improved outcomes; this benefit increased to 38% in higher quality studies and to 43% in those where the intervention was not available to non-participants. This really ignited a passion in me to be at the forefront of making things better for women and their babies and give EVERY woman an opportunity to be involved in research. I always say, if there was anything else identified that could improve outcomes for women and babies we would be doing it so why aren’t we offering research to every pregnant women in our Trusts?

This really ignited a passion in me to be at the forefront of making things better for women and their babies and give EVERY woman an opportunity to be involved in research.

Whilst running the women’s research team at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, I set up the Born and Bred In (BaBi) Leeds study. BaBi Leeds is part of the BaBi Network, a network of local electronic birth cohort studies supported by the Born in Bradford programme and the NIHR ARC Yorkshire and Humber (YH ARC).

BaBi sites - of which there are now four across the region supported by funding from NIHR Clinical Research Network Yorkshire and Humber - invite pregnant women to join the study and allow health researchers to join together routinely collected data about them and their baby with the aim to improve the health and wellbeing of families through research. It wasn’t long after that the BaBi Network asked me to go on secondment to Bradford to help other Trusts across the country set up their ‘BaBi’.

improve the health and wellbeing of families through research

I have currently supported 12 sites to set up BaBi, creating three communities of practice for collaboration and knowledge sharing, and so far, the BaBi sites have recruited more than 37,000 participants! The BaBi sites are now working on data linkage, and identifying opportunities to work collaboratively with policy advisors, local authorities, and researchers to answer important local questions with the data based on local priorities, to improve the health and wellbeing of their communities.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals is also the host of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Yorkshire & Humber. Knowing my previous PR and Marketing background from other work we have done together, the Programme Manager for YH ARC asked if I would help them with the dissemination of the YH ARC’s knowledge and evidence, raise the profile and understanding of the ARC and be its dedicated communications lead.

So here I am!

My communications lead role combines my favourite things, public relations, marketing, and health research! I feel very lucky to be able to use everything I have learnt over the years to be part of the ARC, helping to improve the lives of the 5.4 million people that live in Yorkshire and Humber.

You can learn more about the Yorkshire & Humber ARC at: www.arc-yh.nihr.ac.uk

*Nijjar SK et al BJOG 124: 863-871 (2017)