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Midwifery services need upgrade to save lives – report
Funke Atohengbe, Pretoria
A new report says about three point six million deaths could be avoided each year in 58 developing countries if midwifery services were upgraded by 2015.
These findings formed part of the report presented by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and its partners at the Triennial Congress of the International Confederation of Midwives in Durban, South Africa..
The first-ever State of the World's Midwifery 2011 report unveiled new data confirming that there is a significant gap between the number of midwives practicing and those needed to save lives.
Casualties
The report said each year, 358,000 women die while pregnant or giving birth while some two million newborns die within the first 24 hours of life. There are 2.6 million stillbirths, all because of inadequate or insufficient health care.
It said unless an additional 112,000 midwives are trained, deployed and retained in supportive environments, 38 of the 58 countries surveyed might not meet their target to achieve 95 percent coverage of births by skilled attendants by 2015, as required by the Millennium Development Goals.
It identified poor regulation, weak professional associations, an incomplete policy environment, and the omission of midwifery from human resource costing plans for maternal and neonatal health as major challenges faced by the developing world.
According to the Executive Director of UNFPA, Dr Babatunde Osotimehin, "The report points to an urgent need to train more health workers with midwifery skills and ensure equitable access to their life-saving services in communities to improve the health of women and children."
The report said that if midwives are in place and can refer the most severe complications for specialized care, up to 90 per cent of maternal deaths could be prevented.
Desperate need
Among the 38 countries most desperately in need of midwives, 22 need to double the workforce by 2015 and seven need to triple or quadruple it.
Nine countries, including Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan all need to dramatically scale up midwifery by a factor of between 6 and 15.
The report made recommendations to assist countries increase the number of midwives.
A profile on South Africa, one of the countries included in the report, showed that many midwives need retraining in required maternity and obstetric skills and quality assurance needs to be strengthened.
Ekata
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