What if the way we support birth needs to evolve just as much as the science itself?

In this episode, Hannah speaks with consultant midwife, nurse, researcher and yoga advocate Maria Buaki-Sogo about her journey from emergency medicine to holistic maternity support.

Drawing on years of frontline experience across hospitals, homes and communities, Maria shares how her perspective on birth has shifted and what she’s learned about truly supporting women through one of life’s most transformative experiences.

Together, they explore what’s working, what’s not, and how we might rethink maternity care with compassion, communication and collaboration at the centre.

Topics covered:

• Lessons from emergency and community-based birth work

• Supporting midwives in high-pressure systems

• What holistic, woman-centred care really looks like

• The role of advocacy in everyday maternity work

• Why nervous system awareness matters in birth

About Maria

Maria is both a practicing nurse and a midwife, last working as a Consultant Midwife.

Maria moved to the UK in 2010 from Spain, where she trained as a Registered Nurse and worked for three years as an A&E resus nurse. On arrival in the UK, Maria worked at Imperial College NHS Foundation Trust, gaining significant experience as a theatre nurse across a variety of specialties, from trauma-emergency cases to elective procedures.

Her midwifery experience includes various roles within a maternity setting, including low risk and high-risk pregnancy care, emergency obstetric care and the post-operative management of women who have undergone caesarean sections.

Her midwifery roles comprise of rotational midwifery (providing antenatal care, intrapartum care, and postnatal care), community midwifery care, caseload midwifery care for vulnerable women, homebirth midwifery services and research nursing and midwifery.

Maria is also a former Lead Nurse for North Thames Genomic Medicine, where she led the nursing workforce in the North Thames Region to explore and re-design clinical pathways of care to implement routine genetic testing in the National Health Service (NHS) via national transformational projects reporting back to NHSE/I (National Health Service England and Improvement).

She is also an Adult Nursing Lecturer, teaching applied physiology.

It is Maria's passion for research that has led her to pursue a career as clinical academic and to complete a PhD following achievement of an MSc in Research in Midwifery Studies in 2018, as she believes research is of great importance in developing clinical practice, standards, and advances in care.

Maria is also a passionate advocate for the incredible charity Borne - you can find out more about their incredible work here.

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