Hi, I’m Hannah and I’m one of the new Vice Chairs for the Gloucestershire Maternity Voices.

I’m going to be focusing on perinatal mental health, and neonatal care. I have experience of both areas as a service user so this is a very exciting job for me and something I am very passionate about!

My daughter was born prematurely in August 2020. During my pregnancy, labour and postnatal recovery, and my daughter’s stay in the Neonatal Unit, I experienced a wide range of the maternity services available within Gloucestershire. I also received support both ante- and postnatally from the Perinatal Mental Health team and saw first-hand how these different services interlink to support the people in their care. It was important to me after my birth that I fed back to maternity services about the care that I received, and I’m passionate about meeting with and listening to other women and birthing people to represent their voices and help to improve care when necessary.

I intend to use my experience, alongside my skills developed in my career as a teacher, to work collaboratively to support improvements to maternity health and care services for women, birthing people and their families in the future. The MVP needs women and birthing people to give us their feedback, so please do get in touch with us through social media, or contact me at hannah.wilderspin@nhs.net if there’s anything you’d like to share with us. We would love to hear from you!