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1093 Educators providing NHS courses delivered On Demand

Feed Eat Speak

feed eat speak

London

I am Stacey Zimmels and I'm the owner of Feed Eat Speak. I set it up this company so that I could help families and children to get the help they need when they need it most. I now work independently after almost 20 years in NHS positions. I currently hold an honorary contract the NHS Royal Brompton Hospital in London, having lead their Paediatric Speech Therapy service for the last 8 years. I continue to do some Locum clinical work there as well as clinical research. I'm one of those really lucky people who get out bed each day and goes to work because I love what I do. Helping you and your little ones is a real pleasure and passion for me (that's honestly true). I understand just how stressful and awful it is to have a child who can't or won't eat. It can often feel like no one is listening and that there is no one out there who can help. It can be very worrying to have a child who is different to their peers and to feel desperately hopeful that they will just 'catch up' but deep down you’re concerned that may not be the case. It's hard to find someone you can trust. If this sounds familiar then contact me. I offer a no obligation, free 15 minute phone consultation where you can discuss any concerns you have and see if your child would benefit from speech therapy or a feeding consultation. I provide and deliver the feeding and swallowing and breastfeeding support services and I have a small team of highly experienced speech therapists who can support all areas of speech, language and communication development.

Expectancy - complementary therapy courses for midwives

expectancy - complementary therapy courses for midwives

Derbyshire

Yet again, mainstream media has sensationalised what they perceive as “witchcraft” – the use of “alternative” therapies by midwives. The Sunday Times has now waded into the melee, castigating midwives’ use of aromatherapy, acupuncture, reflexology and “burning herbs to turn a breech baby” (moxibustion). The article by Health Editor Shaun Lintern also denigrates practices which are not classified as complementary therapies, such as water injections for pain relief, hypnobirthing for birth preparation and counselling sessions following traumatic birth. Some of the accusations focus on their (inaccurate) statement about the lack of complementary therapy research, whilst others deplore trusts charging for some of these services. A letter to the Chief Executive of the NHS has been sent by a group of families whose babies have died in maternity units that have now come under scrutiny from the Care Quality Commission and the Ockenden team. Amongst those spearheading this group is a consultant physician whose baby died during birth (unrelated to complementary therapies) and who has taken it on himself to challenge the NHS on all matters pertaining to safety in maternity care. That is admirable – safety is paramount – but it is obvious neither he, nor the author of this latest article, knows anything at all about the vast subject of complementary therapies in pregnancy and birth. The article is padded out with (incorrect) statistics about midwives’ use of complementary therapies, coupled with several pleas for the NHS to ban care that they say (incorrectly) is not evidence-based and which contravene NICE guidelines (the relevant word here being guidelines, not directives). The article is biased and, to my knowledge, no authority on the subject has been consulted to provide a balanced view (the Royal College of Midwives offered a generic response but did not consult me, despite being appointed a Fellow of the RCM specifically for my 40 years’ expertise in this subject). I would be the first to emphasise that complementary therapies must be safe and, where possible, evidence-based, and I am well aware that there have been situations where midwives have overstepped the boundaries of safety in respect of therapies such as aromatherapy. However, I have not spent almost my entire career educating midwives (not just providing skills training) and emphasising that complementary therapy use must be based on a comprehensive theoretical understanding, to have it snatched away because of a few ill-informed campaigners intent on medicalising pregnancy and birth even further than it is already. For well-respected broadsheets to publish such inaccurate and biased sensationalism only serves to highlight the problems of the British media and the ways in which it influences public opinion with untruths and poorly informed reporting.