My mother, Margaret O'Flynn, known professionally as Margaret Foley, who has died aged 94, devoted most of her career to the sexual health of women.
She qualified as a doctor in 1942 during the second world war – a rare achievement for a woman – and later became a consultant gynaecologist. Her mentor was Sir John Peel, who became the Queen's gynaecologist; their friendship endured for life. In 1949 she married John Foley, whom she had met at a friend's home the year before; they had four children, all delivered by caesarean section by Peel.
In 1952, when John was appointed consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology in Portsmouth, Margaret moved into the then pitifully small area of contraception, women's sexual health and management of the menopause, and she began to review the level of provision of contraceptive services in the Portsmouth region.
Her first success was to achieve free contraception for women (initially only for those with four or more children). Later, with the arrival of the pill, funding increased and she obtained from the Department of Health the money to build a specialist women's sexual health centre, the Ella Gordon unit in Portsmouth.
In 1970 she joined her husband in becoming a fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Following John's death in 1972, Margaret took a year's leave of absence in 1976 to become senior gynaecologist in Abu Dhabi. Returning to the UK in 1977, she married Garry O'Flynn, a GP, and became stepmother to a family of five.
In her private life, Margaret was a formidable woman. Beautiful, clothes-conscious and a bit of a spender, she was at her best when surrounded by friends and family, a terrific cook and gracious hostess. She combined significant courage and strength with a kind of shyness. She remained independent well into her 90s, maintaining an elegant home and figure, reading voraciously and fiercely criticising the Conservative party.
Margaret was born in Talke, near Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, the first of two daughters of Ernest and Edith Boulton. At Orme girls' school she became head girl and was inspired by her headmistress to take up medicine, studying at King's College hospital medical school. During the second world war, she alternated fire watching on the roof of King's with treating in basement shelters those patients who were too ill to be moved to the country.
She is survived by her children, Jane, Patrick, Martin and me, by her stepdaughters, Sarah, Clare, Mandy and Joanna, and by seven grandchildren, seven step-grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
