Dr Laura Abbott is a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery at The University of Hertfordshire, a Fellow of the Royal College of Midwives and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Laura qualified as a nurse in 1993 and a midwife in 2000, practising as an Independent Midwife for several years. Laura’s doctorate examined the experiences of pregnant women in prison: The Incarcerated Pregnancy: An Ethnographic Study of Perinatal Women in English Prisons. Laura volunteers with the charity Birth Companions and co-authored The Birth Charter for pregnant women in England and Wales published by Birth Companions in May 2016. In September 2020 Laura was awarded the Mildred Blaxter Post-Doctoral Fellowship from The Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness to continue with her research. She has been publicly recognised as one of the Nation’s lifesavers from ‘Made at Uni’ and was the winner of the Research Success of the Year 2020 Vice Chancellor award. Laura has contributed to the review of operational policy for prison staff managing and caring for all women experiencing pregnancy, Mother and Baby Units (MBUs), and maternal separation in prison. Laura hopes to continue to highlight the issues facing women, campaigning for the recommendations arising from her research to be actioned, meaning change on the ground for pregnant women and new mothers in prison.
