Midwifery colleagues make shock discovery after working together for years

Two midwives worked together for six years before learning they had a special connection.

Sharon Cooling and Katie Wintle were colleagues at Singleton Hospital in Swansea, Wales but hadn’t realised that Sharon delivered Katie at the hospital in 1995.

Their shared past only came to light after Katie became pregnant herself.

‘I had worked with Sharon for so long, learning so much from her,’ Katie, 29, said.

‘All the while, we didn’t know our special past.

‘Now we’ve found this out, it means so much to both of us.’

Katie studied law initially, but knowing how much she enjoyed caring for people decided to retrain as a midwife.

After completing her studies in Bournemouth, she returned to Swansea and began working at Singleton Hospital in 2016.

When she became pregnant with her son Luca, who was born in 2023, Katie and her family were looking through old photos of the day she was born and suddenly noticed a familiar face

It was Sharon and on her lap was Katie as a newborn baby.

‘I immediately knew who that was. Straight away I knew it was Sharon,’ Katie said.

‘I learned so much from Sharon, she is such an icon.

‘If you want to know something or needed help on the ward, she was the person to go to. Everything is in line, and she does everything by the book.’

Katie’s mum, Sally, had also sent Sharon a copy of the photograph after the birth.

Sharon, who recently retired from Swansea Bay University Health Board after almost 49 years of service, immediately recognised the picture.

She said: ‘As soon as I saw the photograph, I instantly recognised it and pulled out my copy.

‘I have a box of things that women have given to me over the years. I remember the day Katie was born, the room we were in and her parents really clearly.

‘I was very surprised to learn this after working together for so long. It’s not every day that you come across someone who pursued the same career as you, and that you were there when they were born.’

Sharon’s NHS career started in 1975 aged 17, before she went on to train as a student midwife in 1984, qualifying in 1986.

She worked as a midwife in the Swansea Bay area until 2024.

Katie is now a midwife sonographer.

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