GLOBAL HEALTH
ACNM Contributes to Influential Global Symposium at Women Deliver
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by Suzanne Stalls, CNM, MA, FACNM, ACNM Vice President of Global Outreach
omen Deliver is a premier global advocacy organization combining voices from around the world to call for action to improve the health and well-being of girls and women. Their message is one that we all share: maternal health is both a human right and a practical necessity for sustainable development. Women Deliver has now hosted 3 triennial conferences organized to garner political commitment and resource investments to reduce maternal mortality and achieve universal access to reproductive health. In the days prior to the beginning of the first Women Deliver conference, held in London in 2007, a group of global organizations and agencies hosted a Midwifery Global Symposium— an event which quickly became a turning point in the global visibility of the need to address midwifery and human resources for health issues, and to accelerate progress toward the achievement of Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. Following the Symposium, some 30 partners and donors came together to produce the first ever State of the World’s Midwifery Report, which was launched at the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) Triennial Congress in Durban, South Africa in June 2011 (exactly 1 year after the pledge was made to produce it). The report reviewed data from 58 low-resource countries representing 91% of the global burden of maternal deaths and 82% of newborn mortality, and provided important findings and a fresh analysis of challenges facing midwifery. Subsequently, the report has played a major role in advocating for and building consensus around strengthening midwifery on a global scale. Since the first symposium, there have been several major landmark achievements, including: • Over 35 countries have pledged to make major investments in midwifery services and strengthening skilled attendance at all births.
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ACNM Urges Action for Moms and Babies at Congressional Briefing
ACNM Vice President for Global Outreach Suzanne Stalls, CNM, spoke at a congressional briefing sponsored by ACNM, AMREF USA, AWHONN, Frontline Health Workers Coalition, IntraHealth International, Jhpiego, and White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood. View her comments at http://bit.ly/15ssw0g.
• ICM has revised global midwifery com-
petencies and published global standards on midwifery education and regulation as well as a capacity assessment tool for associations. The World Health Organization is working to finalize midwifery faculty competencies. • The UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund)/ICM midwifery programme is supporting over 30 developing countries in making midwifery training competency-based, strengthening schools and training faculty, introducing ICM education and regulation standards, and strengthening midwifery associations. • A High Burden Country Initiative led by the H4+ United Nations partnership of maternal-child health organizations, donors, and civil society partners is helping governments of 8 countries (that together represent 60% of all global maternal deaths) prepare detailed midwifery workforce assessments to give cost scenarios and inform policy planning. • UNFPA has launched an initiative with technology giant Intel to strengthen the skills of midwives and frontline health workers using e-training modules to be developed in collaboration with Jhpiego and WHO. • The African Medical and Research Foundation has been conducting successful e-learning initiatives in Africa. • Numerous other technological innovations spawning low cost, durable training materials and innovative methodologies have been developed by civil society and private sector partners.
This spring, Jody Lori, CNM, and I acted as ACNM representatives at the second Midwifery Global Symposium, Strengthening Quality Midwifery Care: Making Strides, Addressing Challenges, held in conjunction with the third triennial Women Deliver conference in Kuala Lumpur. We joined approximately 250 prominent midwives and other health workers with midwifery skills, as well as United Nations partners and other luminaries, to address challenges to achieving Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 while strengthening midwifery worldwide. The 2-day symposium presented an enormous opportunity for key global partners to come together and renew their commitments towards midwifery while showcasing results and innovations that have developed since the last symposium. The 4 key issues pertaining to maternity care services provided by midwives throughout the world are availability, accessibility, acceptability, and quality of care. Women throughout the world are often unable to access quality care from midwives even if it is available. To that end, participants pledged at the end of the Women Deliver conference to continue advocating and being champions for the universal provision of midwifery services as a means of reducing the nearly 300,000 maternal deaths which occur each year.
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American College of Nurse-Midwives