Bangladesh needs more midwives

Bangladesh needs more professional midwives to cut down maternal mortality rates and death of newborn children, says the United Nations Population Funds (UNFPA). This is the observation of the second global report on midwifery launched at Prague, Czech Republic during the ongoing triennial congress of the International Confederation of Midwives. The UN-body says there is a 'huge shortage' of midwives in low-and-middle income countries. If there are more of them, says the report, many more delivering mothers and newborn children could be saved. The report says Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2010 committed to train 3,000 midwives by 2015 in response to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s initiative ‘Every Woman Every Child’. So far, over 1,100 nurse-midwives have been trained to become certified midwives, according to the report. Currently there are more than 1,200 students enrolled in a new training programme that will lead to a Diploma in Midwifery. The report says ‘much more still needs to be done’, according to bdnews24.com.