Rise was founded by Virginia and Nelly, bringing together midwifery and lactation expertise with a shared commitment to continuity of care and holding women through the whole journey.
Nelly is currently on maternity leave. Virginia continues to offer midwifery care, and lactation support remains available through trusted IBCLC colleagues.
The values we built Rise on—time, presence, and trust-based care—continue to guide the work
Midwifery Degree, University of Milan (2009) • NHS Community Midwifery, Brighton • Craniosacral Therapy • Biomechanics for Birth • Breech Training • Birth Trauma Support (3-Step Rewind) • Placenta Medicine Specialist • Over 15 years supporting women through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum
Midwifery Degree, Italy (2015) • IBCLC • Tongue-Tie Practitioner • Pelvic Floor Assessment (Mummy MOT) • Birth Scar Healing Treatment • Biomechanics for Birth • Traditional Chinese Medicine for Pregnancy & Postpartum • Over 10 years supporting women through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum
I’am Virginia. I became a midwife in 2009, and in the years since, I have learned that the most important thing I can offer women is not my skill alone, it is my presence, my time, and my willingness to trust what their bodies already know. Independent practice allows me to work this way. Within systems, I could not.
I trained in Milan within a highly medicalised system where birth was managed and controlled. After qualifying as a midwife in Milan, I worked alongside experienced independent midwives who showed me birth as initiation, as something to be respected, not directed. They taught me to watch, to wait, to trust what was unfolding.
Then I had my own children, two home births that changed everything. Being held through labour myself showed me what I wanted to offer other women. That is where my practice comes from: experience, both witnessing and being witnessed.
I moved to the UK and worked in the NHS across different trusts, most recently in the community team in Brighton for several years. I learned so much and worked alongside midwives who genuinely cared about women.
But over time, I felt something shift. There wasn’t enough time. Too many families. Too much control. I couldn’t give the care I wanted to give—the care I knew women needed to feel safe enough to open.
So I chose to step away. Not because I was against the NHS, but because I needed to be true to myself and to the kind of midwifery I believe in. I couldn’t keep compromising on what mattered most
I am not the same midwife I was in 2009. I notice things more quickly now. I trust my hands and instincts more. I am slower to intervene and faster to notice when something genuinely needs attention. What I bring now is steadiness, presence, quiet competence and the willingness to stay.
My background includes craniosacral therapy and body energy, biomechanics, breech birth, birth trauma support, and yoga-based movement and breath work. I have supported women with complex histories, births outside standard guidelines, and a wide range of experiences.
These aren’t separate skills I pull out when needed, they’ve shaped how I support people, how I understand what bodies are telling me, and how I know the difference between needing to act and needing to stay back.
Midwifery, for me, is love. It is sisters holding sisters, women gathering to honour another woman becoming a mother, staying human and humble to the mystery that is birth. I believe women need to be held through this transition, not managed, not directed. Held. It means one relationship that builds over months, not fragmented care. It means presence that extends beyond the birth itself into the weeks when you are learning who you have become.
I work well with women and people who want to be held through this journey. Families who value relationship and are willing to make decisions based on what feels true for them. This is collaborative work requiring your presence, honesty, and willingness to communicate. I can promise continuity, presence, skill, and honesty, but birth does not follow scripts. If this sounds like the kind of support you’re looking for, you are in the right place!
What I hear most is that women felt empowered. That they had space to be fully in their bodies, to trust what was happening, to find their own power through the experience. That’s what matters: that you emerge from this transformed, the very best version for yourself!
Nelly co-founded Rise Midwives, bringing her passion for lactation support, pelvic floor health, and postpartum care.
Midwifery runs through her family—both her parents are midwives—and she qualified in Italy in 2015. After working in hospital settings, she came to the UK and found her calling at her first home birth in Brighton. That experience shaped her understanding that birth works best when women are at the centre, listened to, and respected.
Nelly has specialised in areas she felt were underestimated: breastfeeding support, tongue-tie assessment and release, birth scar treatment, and pelvic floor health. She became an IBCLC, tongue-tie practitioner, and trained in biomechanics for birth, traditional Chinese medicine for pregnancy, and pelvic floor assessment.
Her work has focused on supporting women through the postpartum period—feeding challenges, healing, and integration.
Nelly is currently on maternity leave and will return to practice later in 2026. Lactation support and tongue-tie assessment remain available through trusted IBCLC colleagues in the meantime.
If you feel called to work together, reach out.
Not ready to book, or can’t find a time that works? Just drop me a note.
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