Dr Tania McIntosh

Tania is a qualified midwife and historian with extensive clinical and educational experience. Her research interests centre primarily around histories of midwifery, maternity care and childbirth. She has completed funded research and has published widely, including peer-reviewed research papers and articles aimed at a broader clinical audience as well as at the general public. Tania has also published two books on the history of maternity care; one aimed at a general readership, the other at students and academics. She has curated a successful public exhibition on the history of midwifery. Her current research consists of several linked strands exploring the history of childbirth policy and practice in England in the late twentieth century.

Tania is comfortable in both the practical delivery of midwifery programmes and in debating the philosophy of providing professional education in a higher education setting. She is passionate about providing high quality education and training for midwives which has public safety and accountability at its heart.

Tania-McIntosh

My research interests

My research interests centre primarily around histories of midwifery, maternity care and childbirth. This stems from my original role as an academic historian, with a broad interest in social history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Previous research focused on histories of professional identity in midwifery from the 1902 Midwives Act to the early twentieth century. This has involved documentary and oral methodologies exploring who midwives were, how they saw their work, and how they responded both to other professionals and to a changing practice environment. My current work considers the period from the mid-1950s onwards, in particular the role of women’s organisations in shaping maternity policy, and the use of popular media to ‘sell’ ideas of birth.

Research activity

Current research projects

Previous research projects

  • Oral history of district midwifery 1948-1974
  • Policy history; the Changing Childbirth Report, genesis, development and impact
  • History of maternity care 1902-2002
  • History of maternity services in Sheffield 1879-1939

Research centres and groups

Contact me

Dr Tania McIntosh
School of Health Sciences
Robert Dodd Building
49 Darley Road
Eastbourne
BN20 7UR

Email: T.Mcintosh@brighton.ac.uk

Biography

I studied history at Cambridge and Leicester universities before completing my PhD on the history of maternity care in Sheffield at the University of Sheffield in 1997. After a period of teaching in the history and Adult Education departments at Sheffield, I studied for my midwifery qualification at the same university. I qualified in 2003 and worked as a midwife in Sheffield and then Nottingham. I moved into midwifery education at Nottingham University as a lecturer, and then 91¶¶Òõ in 2014 where I was appointed principal lecturer in Midwifery and lead midwife for Education.

Research output

 

Consultancy

Member, Editorial Board of MIDIRS Midwifery Digest

PhD students

 
NameThesis
 Kim Russell (2015)

Changing the culture on labour ward to facilitate waterbirth practice: An action research study

Roles

Academic Lead for Midwifery