Dr Amanda Jane Wagg

Amanda’s area of expertise is community nursing, working within a district nursing team and in various leadership roles across the health visiting service since 2005, earning the accolade ‘Queens Nurse’.

[email protected]

Background

Amanda qualified as a nurse in 2003, with a BSc honours in Adult nursing, and worked in the acute medical sector, in renal care for a few years. She moved to pursue a career in community nursing in 2005, working in a district nursing community team, before pursuing a career as a health visitor in 2009.

Amanda worked as a health visitor and various roles within the health visiting service, including infant feeding lead and health visitor implementation plan lead practitioner, before joining ARU in 2017. Amanda was lead for the UNICEF baby friendly accreditation across Norfolk, achieving full accreditation for the service. This is where her interest for infant feeding grew from. Amanda accelerated her interest by becoming an International Board-certified Lactation Consultant in 2014, and founded a registered charity aimed at supporting lactation in 2017, that continues to support women today.

Research interests

Amanda is co-lead for the sexual, reproductive and family health research group, with interest in:

• Lactation support
• Online support 
• Human lactation
• Health Visiting / School Nursing

Amanda completed her PhD in professional practice with psychological perspective at Canterbury Christ Church University in 2021. Her research focus is on online breastfeeding support. Amanda regularly publishes her research and discussion pieces around human lactation as detailed below, and is starting to explore the support provided to student nurses. 

Teaching

• Pre-registration Nursing courses
• Holistic care of people with long term conditions
• Lactation and infant feeding practices across Midwifery, Specialist Community Public Health nursing and Preregistration nurse courses.
• Specialist Community Public Health Nursing
• Autonomous specialist practice and leadership in the community

Amanda teaches across both pre and post-registration courses and across a number of fields of practice and is the course leader for Specialist Community Public Health Nursing (SCPHN): Health Visiting and School Nursing.

Since joining ARU has led the SCPHN course through UNICEF baby friendly reaccreditation in 2023 and started the ARU breastfeeding support hub from the Cambridge Campus. Further developments in 2024 include a human lactation module that prepares practitioners to take the IBCLC exam and a Ruskin module to raise awareness of the importance of infant feeding across the university.

Qualifications

• PhD Professional Practice with a psychological perspective
• MSc Public Health Nursing, Oxford Brookes University
• BSc Adult Health Nursing, University of East Anglia
• Registered Adult Nurse (RN), NMC
• Specialist Community Public Health Nurse, NMC
• International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC)
• Community practitioner Nurse Prescriber (V100)
• Queens Nurse

Selected recent publications

Morgan, K., Wagg, A., Kilburn, A., Purssell, E. 2024.Evaluations of a virtual practice placement: a model to increase student capacity. Nurse education in practice https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2024.103884

Martins, K., Wagg, A., Afonso, E. 2022 Supervision skills in pre-registration nursing through peer teaching: An evaluative survey. Heliyon. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e11398

Wagg, A., Morgan, K., 2022. Online Virtual Nursing Placements: A case study on placement expansion. SAGE Open Nursing. doi: 10.1177/23779608221117392

Wagg, A., Hassett, A., Callanan, M., 2022. Exploring online social support groups, part 2. Clinical Lactation, 13(1). doi: 10.1891/CL.2021-0014

Wagg, A., Hassett, A., Callanan, M., 2022. “It’s more than milk, it’s mental health”: a case of online human milk sharing. International Breastfeeding Journal, 17(5). doi: 10.1186/s13006-021-00445-6

Wagg, A., Callanan, M., Hassett, A., 2021. Exploring Online Breastfeeding Support Groups, part 1 of 2: Finding a community of likeminded people helps a mother to reach her breastfeeding goals. Clinical Lactation, 12(4).

Wagg, A., Gray, L., 2021. The right to feed. Community Practitioner, July/Aug 2021, pp. 34-36.

Wagg, A., Draper-Jennings, N., 2020. Training and adapting in a new world. Community Practitioner, Sept/Oct 2020, pp. 24-25.

Wagg, A.,J., Callanan, M. M., Hassett, A., 2019. Online social support group use by breastfeeding mothers: A content analysis. Heliyon, 5(3), e01245. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e01245

Wagg, A., J., Callanan, M. M., Hassett, A., 2018. The use of computer mediated communication in providing patient support: A review of the research literature. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 82, pp. 68-78. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2018.03.010

Wagg, A., 2013. Prescribing skin-to-skin contact and baby-wearing: interventions in Norfolk. Journal of Health Visiting, 1(4), pp. 218-220.

Wagg, A., 2010. Walking for wellbeing: Mobile Mums, helping to get mothers out and about in West Norfolk. Community Practitioner, 83, p. 5.