Midwives deliver babies -- and they do much more. This slide show created from photographs submitted by UNFPA Country Offices, shows midwives in action in more than 40 countries.
Increasing women's access to quality midwifery has become a focus of global efforts to realize the right of every woman to the best possible health care during pregnancy and childbirth. A first step is assessing the situation. Over 30 organization including the United Nations and the World Health Organization recently worked together to release the first global midwifery report for 35 years. The report surveyed 58 countries representing just under 60 percent of all births worldwide but 91 percent of all maternal deaths.
According to this new report every year 358,000 women and 3.6 million newborns die due to largely preventable complications in pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period. Up to another 3 million babies are stillborn.
Increasing access to midwives has become a focus of global health efforts since it is central to three of the Millennium Development Goals agreed upon by the international community to reduce child death, improve maternal health and step up the fight against AIDS, malaria and other diseases by 2015.
In upcoming posts I will share information from the report on Indonesia. If you are interested you can find more information on the report on the UNFPA web page.
