Midwifery skills save lives. Having those skills available when complications arise can be the difference between life and death. So it sometimes surprises me how little we know about those who care for women and babies across the world.
Laura Sochas tells us about the report she is working on:Midwifery skills save lives. Having those skills available when complications arise can be the difference between life and death. So it sometimes surprises me how little we know about those who care for women and babies across the world.The latest data were collated, analysed and then published in 2011. While that report put midwifery on the map, it also identified many gaps in information.That’s where the forthcoming State of the World’s Midwifery 2014 will come in handy. We know that midwifery services are central to improving maternal and newborn survival. But sometimes, the fact that you need skilled, supported, equitably distributed health workers to deliver those services gets overlooked.Hopefully, the report will go some way towards reframing midwifery so it gets the attention and investment it deserves.The report will demonstrate that midwifery isn’t just about midwives – it’s about an integrated approach to maternal and newborn healthcare, regardless of cadre or job title.And as the world starts thinking about what comes after the Millennium Development Goals in 2015, we want midwifery to be at the forefront of people’s minds, particularly within the context of universal healthcare and effective coverage.Lots of data, 75 countries, one report75 countries with the highest maternal and newborn mortality have been invited to feature in the report – including all of the E4A-MamaYe countries.It is a complicated process, getting data from so many countries and engaging representatives of governments, UN agencies and professional associations. But thanks to the efforts of so many individuals within countries, including MamaYe staff, we are making steady progress. With the available data, we have developed a number of innovative analyses to inform the report including, health geographics and projections for workforce planning.What you can expect is a report that will enable policy discussions nationally and globally:
- Part one of the report will describe the state of midwifery in the present day, focusing on the dimensions of availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of the midwifery workforce and midwifery services, and the resulting effective coverage of reproductive, maternal and newborn health care.
- Part two will explore the future challenges facing midwifery services, as well as the many opportunities that exist to meet these challenges, both in terms of increasing the future number of reproductive, maternal and newborn health care workers and ensuring they provide quality care. This will include a vision of ‘Midwifery 2035’ and a description of the transformational change required in countries as well as globally
- The final part will consist of the individual country profiles, which will display innovative analyses for each country, including the extent to which workforce availability meets the scale of need across the continuum of care, the current state of the enabling environment for midwifery, future demographic and workforce projections, and a selection of possible scenarios to improve future workforce availability.