Rachel Rowe

Rachel Rowe is a Senior Health Services Researcher in the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU).  She has a DPhil in Public Health (University of Oxford), a background in social science and health services research and training in epidemiology and qualitative research methods. 

Rachel’s research interests include intrapartum care, the organisation of maternity care and women’s experience, with a particular focus on midwifery-led settings for care.  Her doctoral research, funded by a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Researcher Development Award, investigated transfer from midwifery unit to obstetric unit during labour and was carried out alongside the landmark Birthplace national prospective cohort study which evaluated the safety of different settings for birth. Subsequent work included further analyses of Birthplace data, a national survey of women’s experience of care after stillbirth or neonatal death, and investigation of women’s preferences for birth setting. 

Funded by an NIHR Post Doctoral Fellowship from 2015-18, she set up and now leads the UK Midwifery Study System (UKMidSS), a national research infrastructure supporting national observational studies and surveys of practice in midwifery units across the UK.  She is a co-investigator for the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Maternal and Neonatal Health and Care.