Our history

The Centre was first established in the early 1990s at St George Hospital by Director Lesley Barclay, Australia’s first Midwifery Professor and Clinical Chair in Midwifery and Family Health. The centre’s vision of building midwifery research capacity and supporting meaningful and impactful research that improved childbearing women’s maternity care experiences and optimised maternal, newborn and family outcomes was clear from the outset.  

Operationalising the vision required tremendous commitment and foresight as in the 1990s, the very idea of midwives being university educated, let alone holding a professorial position or academic post, was either dismissed outright or met with substantial resistance.   

Lesley, however, led by example. Together with Michael Chapman, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Jo Wills, Senior Midwifery Manager at St George Hospital in Sydney, Lesley established a strong research portfolio and supported a keen group of emerging academics.

A large proportion of Australia’s first cohort of professors obtained their doctorates through The Centre for Midwifery, Child and Family Health. For example, past students Pat Brodie, Hannah Dahlen, Deborah Davis, Jennifer Fenwick, Maralyn Foureur, Catherine Fowler, Joanne Gray, Caroline Homer, Nicky Leap, Virginia Schmied and Sally Tracy, have all made considerable research contributions that have changed the face of midwifery and child and family nursing practice, not only in Australia but globally.

The growth and success of the Centre continued under the leadership of former Director Emeritus Professor Caroline Homer. Caroline’s achievements at both a national and international level are many including being the first midwife to chair the NHMRC. Caroline has always contended that the support, openness, and constructive feedback provided by Lesley and others, within a critical feminist framework, is the legacy that continues, even today, to sustain and underpin the success of the centre. Many of our current team and the next generation of midwifery researchers, including Christine Catling, Deborah Fox, Vanessa Scarf, Heike Roth, Bec Coddington and Dr Annabel Sheehy gained their PhD qualifications within the Centre.

While not specifically research related, in tandem with the establishment and growth of the Centre, was the UTS Midwifery Team’s pursuit and development of an undergraduate Bachelor of Midwifery program (alongside its renowned postgraduate midwifery program for registered nurses). Led by Professor Joanne Gray, the ten-year vision for midwifery education resulted in the successful implementation of a Bachelor of Midwifery program. Caroline’s reflections hint at the enormous effort of the team to bring this dream to fruition: “It was ten years of absolute fighting”.

Part of the challenge involved agitating for the Nurses’ Act to be changed in the NSW Parliament to enable direct-entry midwives to practise. In addition, obtaining indemnity insurance for a new course such as midwifery posed some difficulties. However, the commitment and ongoing efforts of the UTS Midwifery Team resulted in the NSW Health Department supporting the first year of the program.  

Students from the very first Bachelor of Midwifery cohort now hold clinical and academic leadership positions with a number completing doctoral degrees. For Caroline, Joanne and the midwifery team, who faced and overcame staunch opposition to the commencement of the undergraduate degree, being able to share the news that one of their BMid students had just passed their doctorate in midwifery, was the ultimate reward for a vision conceptualised many years ago. In 2023 nearly 160 midwifery students commenced the BMid or Postgraduate Diploma in Midwifery.