About the Author

Sheena Byrom has been a midwife since the 1970s, working in hospitals, birth centres and homes, and later becoming a consultant midwife and head of midwifery. She writes and lectures regularly on midwifery topics, chairs the Royal College of Midwives campaign for normal birth, and is a trustee of the Iolanthe Midwifery Trust and a patron of StudentMidwife.net Professor Soo Downe has worked as a clinical midwife for 15 years. Her research focus is the nature of, and cultures around, normal birth. She introduced the concepts of salutogenesis and complexity into midwifery in her edited book on normal childbirth in 2004. She is a member of the steering group for the recent Lancet Series on Midwifery, and of the WHO Technical Working Group on antenatal guidelines.