Prunella Briance

Prunella Mary Briance (née Chapman) (1926–2017) was the British founder of the National Childbirth Trust and a passionate campaigner to improve the health of women and their experience in childbirth.

Early life Briance was born on 31 January 1926, in Putney, London, to Eric Haldane Chapman (1887 -1961), a major (later colonel) in the British army, and Vera Lyndall, née Archbold. The family moved to India when Briance was still young, though she returned to England for her secondary education, joining the Women's Royal Naval Service during the Second World War. She began by advertising in The Times However the medical profession was not so supportive of the notion that a 'natural' birth did not included appropriate medical advice, where needed, and their supporters were challenged by the British Medical Association, and by the 1980s, 240 local and regional branches, most including both parents in classes about anatomy and physiology, pain control and a partner's role in care. By 2016, the NCT had 300 branches across the UK and Channel Islands and over 100,000 members. was endorsed by Government research published in 1993 and became British health care policy.

In 1982, Briance self-published a book Childbirth with confidence: What every woman should know about childbirth, from her presentation at the 6th International Congress of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the Reichstag, West Berlin, Germany. The foreword by Professor D.W. Winnicot paediatrician and psychoanalyst stated that only 3% of births to healthy women required medical interventions. Since that period, NCT have continued to influence popular and professional books on maternity care from the work in educating parents-to-be and obstetrics service staff, following the examples of Dick-Read and Briance. The 2011 Scottish government review of health policy including 'pathways of care which are person-centred', a programme called 'Keeping Childbirth Natural and Dynamic (KCND). Credit is also given to the NCT in influencing changes in the birth experiences of women over the last 40 years.

Their model of small social group learning, whilst adding peer pressure,

Death and archive Briance died aged 91 in 2017. The archives of the NCT are held at the Wellcome Library in London.