Rebecca Whybrow

Research interests and publications in the following areas:

• Personalised Care
• Decision-making
• Decision support tools
• Implementation Science
• Maternal and neonatal inequalities
• Maternal medicine
• Intrapartum care
• Evaluation of maternity care provision
• Evaluation of interdisciplinary training interventions

Improving care for pregnant women and their families by researching the implementation of personalised care and shared (or supported) decision-making. Research funded by the NIHR has resulted in the development and implementation of a shared decision-making intervention for women with chronic hypertension in pregnancy. With a particular focus on reducing maternal and neonatal inequalities. Other research in this field has included exploring timing and mode of birth decision-making to inform strategies that improve perinatal outcomes and women’s experiences of childbirth through personalised supported decision-making. As well as priority Setting Partnership with the James Lind Alliance.

Further, multiple method maternity evaluations and development of implementation strategies to improve the delivery of maternity services for women with pre-existing medical conditions and interdisciplinary training interventions.  

Dr Rebecca Whybrow is a Lecturer of Midwifery at King’s College London. As an experienced midwife, educator and researcher, Rebecca specialises in ‘high-risk’ pregnancies, intrapartum care, clinician and patient decision-making, and public policy. Rebecca’s NIHR funded PhD explored the implementation of shared decision-making in pregnant women with hypertension which included codesigned antihypertensive patient decision aids. Rebecca currently leads the undergraduate module in public health and health promotion, and supervises PhD students with a particular interest in shared decision-making, decision support tools and health promotion interventions (in maternity) and interprofessional education.

Rebecca was previously Senior Maternity Safety Advisor at the Department of Health and Social Care advising on, and overseeing delivery of, the fetal brain injury reduction (ABC programme) commission and the Neonatal Life Support Training commission.  Rebecca was a member of the Maternity Disparities Task Force 2022, the NHS England Personalised Care working group 2021-Current and the Maternity Leadership and Culture working group 2021-2022. Rebecca was also a key Women’s Health Strategy (personalised care and shared decision-making) contributor. Rebecca has also developed content for the Personalised Care Institute.

She was also an ‘Intrapartum care for women with existing medical conditions and their babies’ NICE guideline committee member and specialist advisor for the quality standards 2014-2019. As well as a co-author of pregnancy and renal conditions clinical practice guideline 2019-2020.