It’s Great Expectations Time for the Great Expectations Team

A team of healthcare professionals who run a ‘Great Expectations’ programme for parents-to-be are this week filled with their own great expectations as they prepare to find out whether they have won a national award.

The team, part of Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust, have been shortlisted down to the final three in the Team of the Year category of the British Journal of Midwifery Awards 2014.

Midwife and Great Expectations Co-ordinator Leeshia Walton said: “It’s amazing to be shortlisted. We have put so much hard work into creating Great Expectations and we’ve had really positive feedback from parents about the difference it has made to them. For all that to be acknowledged nationally is fantastic.”

Great Expectations is a six week antenatal education programme for pregnant women and their partners/supporters. It is broken down into six weekly sessions, which follow the chronology of a pregnancy and birth. This starts with key aspects of a healthy pregnancy such as not smoking, nutrition, emotional attachment and activity and goes right through to ’10 days and beyond’, the healthy child programme.

Feedback is a key part of the programme and the feedback collected and evaluated has demonstrated that women and their partners/supporters feel more informed about the benefits of a healthier lifestyle and how this can impact on the health and development of their baby. They also feel more prepared to make informed choices about their pregnancy and birth. The parents and supporters also reported feeling more confident about being with their baby and responding to their needs, after the course.

The excited team will now attend the national awards ceremony in London on Wednesday 5 March 2014 where they will find out if they are the overall category winners.

Sue Stock, Head of Midwifery, said: “I am delighted for the team. This is a superb acknowledgement of the really hard work they do to help prepare parents-to-be. I wish them the very best of luck.”