WUNRN
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Women
and their infants at a maternity hospital in the |
DAKAR,
5 May 2009 (IRIN) - The number of midwives worldwide would have to more than
double to meet Millennium Development Goals
of reducing maternal and infant deaths by 2015, according to the International
Confederation of Midwives (ICM) and World Health Organization on International
Day of the Midwife.
Maternal
mortality is the “highest health inequity in the world with more than 99
percent of deaths [in pregnancy and childbirth] occurring in the developing
world,” World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank, UN Children’s Fund
(UNICEF) and UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said in a joint statement. In 2008 the
agencies pledged to work with governments to fill the “urgent need for skilled
health workers, particularly midwives”, the statement says.
WHO
estimates that for the annual 160 million births worldwide it would take an
additional 350,000 midwives to ensure that at least 95 percent of
births were attended by trained health workers, thereby helping meet MDGs.
ICM
estimates that there are 250,000 licensed midwives worldwide, with 13,000 in
sub-Saharan
Monir
Islam, director of WHO’s Making Pregnancies Safer Programme, said governments’
failure to focus on midwifery has been deadly. “Starting in 1987 in an effort
to make motherhood safer, countries invested in traditional birthing
attendants, which has not reduced maternal and infant mortality.”
He
said: “Traditional
birthing attendants have their role in ensuring safe motherhood. They have
community standing and can promote nutrition, can prepare a woman for
childbirth, but at the moment of birthing [they] should bring the woman to a
trained health worker.”
He said
countries that invested in midwifery and emergency obstetric care, including
But he
noted that midwifery training is still not enough to ensure safe childbirths.
“It is also about employment, deployment, retention and giving midwives
supplies. What good is a midwife who comes to the clinic every day with no
supplies? No gloves? Or those used to do tasks that auxiliary nurses could do?”
A
health worker is considered a midwife only after completing a certified
midwifery education programme to provide care during pregnancy, labour and the
postpartum period, according to ICM.
WHO’s
Islam told IRIN that while
He
added that
“This
will not happen overnight,” said Islam. “But we need to take action.”
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