Academic staff
![Miss Zoi Vardavaki](/download/53a3ab325259ecbb39d8257d6f5faeda76f49bda213ec65fec9bed9c7b45c4c4/110208/webdisplay/w600/h600/1626431124958.jpeg)
86
total views of outputs42
total downloads of outputs3
views of outputs this month4
downloads of outputs this month
I am a senior midwifery lecturer at London Southbank University. I am an experienced academic, midwife, & part-time doctoral student with a demonstrated history of working in various settings within NHS & Higher Education. As a midwife, I promote the physiology of birth to optimise the experiences of people without compromising the outcomes & quality of care. I am interested in supporting alternative birth choices, advocating for service users needs & I have a passion for midwifery-led care. I am a co-founder of the Hellenic British Midwifery Association, which enables me to serve the midwifery community & promote women's & birthing people's health at every level.
My main research interests are:
- Promoting physiology of birth,
- Midwifery-led units and midwifery-led care,
- Waterbirth,
- Sustainable midwifery practice,
- Optimising pregnancies with additional needs,
- Supporting women's/birthing people's unconventional birth choices in midwifery-led & community settings
- Women's health research,
- Improve birth satisfaction.
I am currently pursuing a PhD, with a mixed method approach, focusing on how organisations are actively supporting unconventional birth choices within maternity services. My MiROG Study consists of two phases. The first phase, which is now underway, involves an online survey aimed at identifying and understanding the working practices of organisations across the country that actively support and facilitate Out of Guidance birth choices. Phase two will consist of a case study to explore the standards, processes, and cultural context of organisations that have supported service users who make birth choices that fall outside the standard patterns of care provision. The second phase will identify good practices and key recommendations to inform midwifery education, policy, and other organisations.
Courses taught
Midwifery (3 year) - BSc (Hons)
Midwifery - Pg Diploma
In this role I was teaching undergraduate and postgraduate pre and postregistration midwifery and health care students. I have been involved in teaching anatomy and physiology, normality, infant feeding, and relationship building, midwifery skills across all the years, managing emergencies in maternity and
research modules in all levels (level 5 -7) where I was also supervising MSc dissertation projects. I was also a module leader for one 1st year module -skills module, and two 2nd year modules - neonatal studies and global maternal health. I have been using VLE, enquire-based learning, simulation, skilled-based & cased based approached to have interactive teaching and learning. During Covid19, online interactive teaching approach was adopted with the use of VLE, online live & narrated sessions, use of online discussion boards for interaction and student engagement. I was marking assignments, narrated PowerPoint presentations and
exam papers, assessing students on OSCEs, and participated in the University's screening and selection processes by reviewing applications and interviewing candidates. In addition to this, I was the elective placement coordinator for both the shortened and the long midwifery programmes, and I was responsible to liaise
with the nationals and/or international organisations for students' elective placements. As part of this role, I also created an elective placement booklet for students to use during their placement to record and reflect on their experiences.
Further to my role as midwifery lecturer, I was linked to two of our partner Trusts as link lecturer providing support to the clinical staff regarding our students and liaising with the CPFs. I was a personal tutor to a number of students from both
the undergraduate and the postgraduate programmes, providing pastoral care and support with their studies and clinical placements, making sure that if an action plan is required to put in place to support students' learning needs.
In my research role, I worked as part of the Women's Health Research Team actively contributing to the running of Obstetric, Fertility, Fetal Medicine, and Gynaecology clinical trials. I was responsible for studies on the NIHR portfolio including patient identification, consent, screening, study-related care, and follow-up. I supported research in Women's Health and it was my responsibility to not only maintain contemporaneous documentation of clinical events and data input into the case report forms and to keep study files up to date, but also to ensure that I was working in accordance with the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical
Trials) Regulations 2004, Research Governance Framework 2005, ICH Good Clinical Practice (ICH GCP) guidelines, Data Protection Act 1998 and other local policies and regulations. In addition, I coordinated my own case-load of clinical studies and the participants. Moreover, I reported to PI and CI serious adverse
events that happen. To continue, I have developed administration skills as part of my role (i.e. recruitment records are accurately maintained, access the computer network as required retrieving relevant information) and I was also responsible to
provide ongoing advice and information to participants/volunteers with regard to their participation in clinical research in order to facilitate effective informed consent. Furthermore, in this role, I assisted the midwifery and nursing students working with me in the Research Team, as well as the clinicians in the assessment of participants/volunteers for eligibility for research and monitoring of their condition throughout their participation and I worked within the NMC Code Of Conduct and Scope of Professional Practice. Finally, I made sure I keep the appropriate staff informed of the progress of clinical studies and I maintained up-to-date knowledge of research related articles particularly related to clinical studies.
Band 6 Midwife working at the postnatal ward for 6 months and then for 18 months on the alongside birthing centre. During my placement on Postnatal Word, I was providing holistic care to mothers and babies. In the Maternity Care Unit, I was looking after high-risk postnatal women (with instrumental deliveries, or post-cesarean section) and their babies. There were also babies that needed intensive care as there were under phototherapy, observations or they had difficulty with breastfeeding and I was supporting these families in order to help them to join in
the parental role with more confidence.
During my placement at Birthing Centre, as a senior band 6 Midwife, I was providing holistic midwifery care to women and
babies in the antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal periods. Providing antenatal education, active birth, natural methods of pain relief, water birth, birth in upright positions, physiological 3rd stage, skin to skin, and breastfeeding support.
Managing obstetric and neonatal emergencies in the birthing centre and organising immediate transfers to the Delivery Suite when appropriate.
Rotational Midwife during my preceptorship. Provided holistic midwifery care to women and babies in the antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal periods.
Midwifery Programme
Midwifery Programme in Greek
Measurement equivalence of the Birth Satisfaction Scale-Revised (BSS-R): further evidence of construct validity
Martin, C., Vardavaki, Z. and Hollins Martin, C. (2016). Measurement equivalence of the Birth Satisfaction Scale-Revised (BSS-R): further evidence of construct validity. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology . 34 (4), pp. 394-402. https://doi.org/10.1080/02646838.2016.1184747
Construct and content validity of the Greek version of the Birth Satisfaction Scale (G-BSS)
Vardavaki, Z., Hollins Martin, C. and Martin, C.R. (2014). Construct and content validity of the Greek version of the Birth Satisfaction Scale (G-BSS). Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology. 33 (5), pp. 488-503. https://doi.org/10.1080/02646838.2015.1035235
Domestic Violence and the role of the midwife
Vardavaki, Z. (2019). Domestic Violence and the role of the midwife. in: Antonakou, A. and Papoutsis, D. (ed.) Midwifery Care in Pregnancy Broken Hill. pp. 457-473