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Liz Gale

Liz Gale RGN, RM, BSc Hons, MA

Senior Lecturer, Midwifery

Liz Gale is a Senior Lecturer for Midwifery in the School of Health Sciences at the University of 杏吧app下载.

Liz is a midwife who has worked in both hospital and community settings, for many years as caseload midwife. She was involved in the setting up of a local Sure Start and worked as a midwife within that multidisciplinary team.

Since joining the university, Liz has been module lead and taught on a range of modules for midwifery and nursing students, as well as within Early years.

Her teaching focuses on psychosocial aspects of care and the recognition of wider influences on health and wellbeing. Her particular interests are in social midwifery, public health, promoting equitable outcomes for more disadvantaged families, infant feeding and transition to early parenthood.

Her PhD was a Hermeneutic phenomenological study of the transition to parenthood for couples with an IVF pregnancy.

Posts held previously:

  • 2002-04, Sure Start Midwife, North Bexley Sure Start
  • 1992-2002, Senior Midwife, Queen Marys Hospital, Sidcup
  • 1989-92, Staff Midwife, Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup
  • 1987 – 1989 Student and Staff Midwife, West Middlesex Hospital, Isleworth
  • 1983 – 1986 Student and Staff Nurse, Guys’ Hospital, London

Midwifery

Responsibilities within the university
  • Module leader for midwifery specific and generic modules
  • Personal tutor
  • Link lecturer
  • Dissertation supervisor for BSc and MSc students

Recognition
  • External examiner at the University of Suffolk
  • NMC reviewer for Anglia Ruskin University
  • British Journal of Midwifery – Winner for Contribution to Midwifery Education 2018

Research / Scholarly interests

Liz's research interests include early transition to parenting, young parents, support for breastfeeding mothers and hermeneutic phenomenology.

Her PhD study ‘Returning to the Path. A hermeneutic phenomenological study of parental expectations and the meaning of transition to early parenting in couples with a pregnancy conceived using in-vitro fertilisation’ was completed in 2021.

Key funded projects

  • 2010-11, NHS 杏吧app下载 PCT: Abbey Wood Infant Feeding Project
  • 2009, (with Jane Reeves) ESRC grant/Joint University Council National Social Work Scheme Developing Researcher Programme: analysing the experiences of young women who have children by multiple partners

Recent publications

Gale, L. and Davies, N. (2013). Young people's attitudes towards breast feeding: a survey of 13-15-year-old pupils in a south London school. British Journal of Midwifery, 21(3), pp. 195-201.

Heptinstall, T. and Gale, L. (2011) The social, cultural and spiritual context of childbearing. In: J. McGill-Cuerden, and S. Macdonald, eds., Mayes Midwifery: A textbook for Midwives. Balliere Tindall.

Heptinstall, T. and Gale, L. (2011). The choice agenda and place of birth. In: J. McGill-Cuerden, and S. Macdonald, eds., Mayes Midwifery: A textbook for Midwives. Balliere Tindall.

Gale, L. (2008). A Father is born. In: J. Reeves, ed., Inter-professional approaches to young fathers. M&K Update Ltd.

Gale, L. (2008). Throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Are medical experts in danger of short sightedness by the increasing focus on the 'medicalisation' of pregnancy and the 'risk management' of postnatal support? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest, 18(2).

Presentations

Gale, L. (2013). Breast is Best but not for me: A study of Young People's Attitudes to Infant Feeding in a South London Comprehensive School. [Poster]. Nutrition and Nurture in Infancy and Childhood: Bio-Cultural perspectives, Maternal and Infant Nutrition and Nurture Unit.

Gale, L. and Reeves, J. (2009). Analysing the experiences of young women who have children by multiple partners. The Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Conference, Athens.