The right to health is a basic human right that every woman should enjoy. Yet, every day, almost 1000 women die in pregnancy and childbirth. Every year, 8 million women suffer serious pregnancy-related illnesses and disabilities, such as obstetric fistula, and 2 million babies don’t survive the first 24 hours of their lives. One of the main causes for these tragedies is lack of access to maternity services, including the care of midwives or others with midwifery skills at childbirth.
UNFPA and ICM are leading efforts to promote midwifery around the world. The two organizations scaled up efforts to strengthen midwifery training programmes and policies in 30 countries. Last year, together with 28 partners, UNFPA and ICM also launched the first ever State of the World’s Midwifery report, which showed that no health-care system can be efficient and effective if it ignores the importance of midwifery.
In Kosovo, there is lack of reliable data on maternal and infant deaths due to high percentage of underreporting. There has been significant improvement in last decade, however, need for well trained medical staff and midwives is still required.
In recent years, UNFPA Kosovo provided training of midwives on counseling skills for family planning. Nevertheless, midwives have more to offer than they are providing now. Their skills and responsibilities should be strengthened and valued in order to improve maternal and children’s health.
Urgent action is needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 on child and maternal health before the target year of 2015, and investing in human resources for health, especially midwifery, is one the soundest investments a country can make to accelerate progress. Midwives are the unsung heroes of women’s and children’s health, and their work must be supported every step of the way.
UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.
