All of our antenatal classes are taught by fantastic midwives who work locally.
They bring a wealth of knowledge and professional experience to our antenatal classes. They are an invaluable resource to the first-time parents attending our classes, with up-to-date knowledge and training they are able to answer all questions and ease any concerns our new parents have. They are fun, compassionate and deliver evidence-based information in a non-judgemental manner.
They are also all registered and insured both with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), Royal College of Midwives (RCM), and the Federation of Antenatal Educators (FEDANT). See below a list of our course leaders; feel free to click on any one of them to find out more about them.
Abi Matthews
Abi qualified as a midwife in 2017 and works at Southmead Hospital in Bristol on the Central Delivery Suite.
Abi’s passion is providing evidence-based, holistic care to women and their families, particularly those who need a medical birth setting. This is rooted in Abi’s belief that regardless of how you experience pregnancy and birth, good support and information is the key to creating a positive birth experience.
Abi has experience of working in antenatal and postnatal care, and was also part of a home-birth team before moving to the Central Delivery Suite. Before and during her midwifery career, Abi has enjoyed volunteering for various woman-centered services in Bristol.
Alyse Cocking
Alyse qualified as a midwife in 2020, after training at Southmead hospital. Alyse has worked in a variety of environments including delivery suite, birth centre and the antenatal wards and has spent the past 9+ months within the community setting, now joining the continuity team. Alyse is passionate about education and preparing families to transition into parenthood, from pregnancy challenges, all eventualities in birth and supporting mental wellbeing in the postnatal period. When not at work, Alyse enjoys spending her time with her 2 children, family and friends.
“I chose to join the team at New Life as I heard such fantastic feedback from women I was caring for within the community. I heard from them how important it was that the classes were run by practicing midwives, who some of them saw when having their babies too! I remember becoming a parent myself, and struggling to find the right resources to prepare me for giving birth and becoming a parent. I think the content in New Life classes is exceptional, and covers all grounds! I’m looking forward to being a part of families’ journeys.”
Becky Pearce
Becky qualified as a midwife in 2020. She trained at Southmead Hospital and now works for St Michaels Hospital in Bristol.
Prior to this she worked as a Maternity Care Assistant in Dorset County Hospital and Princess Anne Hospital, Southampton. Within this role she helped run antenatal classes and breastfeeding support groups and found a passion for antenatal care.
Alongside training to become a midwife she worked as a Health Care Assistant at the New Horizons Mother and Baby Unit which sparked her interest in maternal mental health especially in the postpartum period.
Becky believes that supportive, clear evidence based antenatal education can prepare women and their partners for birth and early parenthood and reduce potential mental health difficulties that can be experienced at this time.
In her spare time she likes to do yoga (she is a qualified yoga instructor), go walking and cook food for friends.
Carley Oates
Carley qualified as a midwife in 2016. She is also an experienced antenatal and postnatal yoga teacher, integrating evidence-based midwifery and empowered birthing.
She has been teaching antenatal groups and supporting couples to prepare for childbirth since 2009. Her caring compassionate approach provides a friendly relaxed environment where couples explore the changes that pregnancy, birth and parenting may bring to family life.
She has seen the benefits of antenatal education in improving the experience of women and their families and the value of couples preparing for parenthood together and within a group.
She has been teaching antenatal groups and supporting couples to prepare for childbirth since 2009. Her caring compassionate approach provides a friendly relaxed environment where couples explore the changes that pregnancy, birth and parenting may bring to family life.
She has seen the benefits of antenatal education in improving the experience of women and their families and the value of couples preparing for parenthood together and within a group.
Cat Maslaveckas-Marshall
Cat qualified as a midwife in 2008, from Plymouth University. She currently works at the RUH Bath hospital on the Bath Birth Centre catching babies. Additionally, as a trained sonographer, she carries out third trimester growth scans in the antenatal scan clinics.
She has a passion for education as it’s the key in making informed decisions for positive birth experiences.
In her free time she enjoys swimming, surfing, tennis and walking my dog Fenton.
Cat Walker
Cat is a qualified midwife and has worked at North Bristol NHS Trust since 2019.
“I love teaching the NLC as the classes have so much information and are really interactive. They really do prepare you for all of labour, birth and the postnatal period. Since taking the classes myself and having my own baby I can say hand on heart they helped my partner to be a better birth partner and to understand and prepare for birth and having a newborn. It’s an added bonus you get to make new friends going on the same crazy journey as you!”
Kate Bennett
From a very young age, Kate has been fascinated with pregnancy and birth and as she became older, wanted to help women and their families navigate this new journey into parenting; so retained as a midwife following a career in law and project management. Kate qualified as a Midwife in 2010 and has worked in a variety of settings in Central Delivery Suite, Birth Centre, Community and Home Birth team. Following the birth of her first daughter, she completed additional training to become a Health Visitor and now works primarily with vulnerable and ‘at risk’ families. Kate is also a breastfeeding key worker and disseminates evidence-based practice to her peers as well as the families that she works alongside.
Kate is passionate about antenatal education as a means of increasing participants knowledge from current evidence based practice, thus enabling them to achieve a sense of control over their birth process and manage expectations in the early days of parenthood, even if this doesn’t go according to plan; and also a way of increasing couples social interaction, reducing social isolation and feelings of vulnerability which are very common in new parents.
Kate lives in Thornbury with her husband Andy and daughters Phoebe and Primrose.
Sophie Inman
Sophie qualified as a midwife in 2019. Most of her career so far has been spent in a labour and birth environment, mainly on the midwife-led unit at Southmead Hospital. This team also cares for a postnatal ward so she has experience in lots of different areas of midwifery.
She loves being a midwife because she gets to help people through some of the most challenging, but amazing, days of their lives or occasional carrying them through their worst.
“I have chosen to work for New Life because the course is so full and well-rounded. Having an evidenced-based education helps empower women and their partners to make informed choices around their care and have positive birth and parenting experiences.”
When Sophie is not working or teaching, she loves playing and listening to music, rom-coms and 2-4-1 cocktails (on her nights off!)
