Dr Healy’s research focuses on promoting physiological and positive birth and postnatal experiences by enabling women access to conducive birth settings and evidenced based care. Dr Healy leads a programme of research developing, implementing and evaluating the impact of co-produced evidenced based guidelines for the admission to Midwife-led Units (MLUs) along with a Pathway of Care for Normal Labour and Birth.

She is co-project lead in the development of a regional guideline for Planning birth a Home and is an active research member in the EU COST Action IS1405 ‘BIRTH’.

Her research methods have included surveys, systematic reviews (metasynthesis and meta-analysis), phenomenology and action research. The focus of her research is to improve the childbirth experiences and outcomes for women, their babies and partners.