Global Babies by The Global Fund for Children

While midwives are often relegated to the periphery of health care, all evidence suggests they should be at the centre. Midwife-led care models improve health outcomes, increase patient satisfaction and reduce costs. Evidence shows that competent midwives can provide 90 per cent of essential sexual and reproductive health care, yet because they are both underutilized and in short supply, they account for only 10 per cent of those currently providing these services. In some 125 countries, UNFPA strongly advocates for quality midwifery care. By closing the deficit in the number of midwives, we could prevent two thirds of maternal and newborn deaths, saving over 4.3 million lives a year by 2035. Universal access to midwives offers the best and most cost-efficient solution to end preventable maternal deaths. Every single year, 287,000 women globally lose their lives giving birth 2.4 million newborns die and an additional 2.2 million are stillborn. Decades of progress in preventing maternal deaths have ground to a halt. The consequences of not having enough skilled midwives are alarming. Midwives are often the only healthcare workers serving people in hard-to-reach places. Midwives provide essential information on sexual and reproductive health, including family planning, and help people navigate often-sensitive issues in a variety of contexts, including in humanitarian settings. Nothing could be further from the truth.Īround the globe, in countries that invest in a capable midwifery workforce, more mothers and babies survive and thrive. This, along with a global shortage of 900,000 midwives, reflects an assumption that they are not essential healthcare workers. Instead, many health systems continue to marginalize this mostly female workforce, and treat midwives poorly in terms of pay, working conditions and opportunities to cultivate skills. If every pregnant woman had access to a well-trained, caring midwife, we would be much closer to a world where every childbirth is safe.

In a world that sees a woman die every two minutes due to pregnancy or childbirth, we also take this moment to champion universal access to skilled midwives as one of the most important ways to avert preventable maternal and newborn deaths. Every year on this day, we celebrate midwives for their unwavering commitment to saving lives and ensuring the health and wellbeing of women and newborn babies.

Global Babies by The Global Fund for Children