ALERT – Action Leveraging Evidence to reduce perinatal Mortality and morbidity in Sub-Saharan Africa

Mechthild is a midwifery researcher for over 30 years. After training as a nurse and midwife, as well as a BSc and MSc in psychology, she graduated with a PhD in 2001. In 2009, she submitted her post-doctoral thesis and became professor in 2015. She founded the Midwifery Research and Education Unit at Hannover Medical School in 2001 and has been the director since then. Since 2009 she has been head of the European Master of Science in Midwifery programme. In addition to mentoring PhD’s, she supervised 36 midwives who conducted their MSc projects in the EU, Bangladesh, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. She is an experienced PI for multi-centre studies which were funded by the German Research Council, FP7, and H2020. Mechthild has been a consultant on the WHO recommendations on intrapartum care for a positive childbirth experience and on non-clinical interventions to reduce unnecessary caesarean sections. In 1983, Mechthild witnessed her first labour and birth at the Lake Victoria in Kenya. She has been involved in clinical practice since then.

Contact: Gross.Mechthild@mh-hannover.de

Select Publications: Clarke M, Devane D, Gross MM, Morano S, Lundgren I, Sinclair M, Putman K, Beech B, Vehviläinen-Julkunen K, Nieuwenhuijze M, Wiseman H, Smith V, Daly D, Savage G, Newell J, Simpkin A, Grylka-Baeschlin S, Healy P, Nicoletti J, Lalor J, Carroll M, van Limbeek E, Nilsson C, Stockdale J, Fobelets M, Begley C. OptiBIRTH: a cluster randomised trial of a complex intervention to increase vaginal birth after caesarean section. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2020 Mar 6