Warm welcome to a webinar where you will get the opportunity to celebrate midwives across the world for their invaluable contributions to the lives of women, adolescents, newborns and families, and to progress in achieving universal health coverage (UHC).
Setback for women's health
The newly released report "Trends in maternal mortality 2000 to 2020" (the The United Nations Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group, MMEIG) reveals alarming setbacks for women’s health over recent years, as maternal deaths either increased or stagnated in nearly all regions of the world since 2016.
However, evidence indicates that it is possible to avert more than 80% of all maternal deaths, stillbirths and neonatal deaths if midwives are educated according to international standards, and if midwifery includes the provision of contraceptives and counselling, health promotion/wellbeing, disease prevention and delivering primary and community care.
The importance of midwives
Addressing the severe shortage of more than 1 million midwives globally, requires scaling up investments in educating and deploying midwives into the health workforce. It also requires investing more in primary health care and stronger and more resilient health systems that can reach the most vulnerable and poor women and girls.
Sweden has a long history and experience in midwifery and during the Sweden EU presidency, Sweden-Sida will take the opportunity to address the importance of health system strengthening including educating and deploying midwives.