NOT ENOUGH MIDWIVES

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32378, 18 August 1970, Page 3

NOT ENOUGH MIDWIVES

Forty per cent of the world’s mothers do not have professional care during pregnancy and labour, the executive secretary of the International Confederation of I Midwives (Miss Marjorie Bayes) said in Christchurch recently. Improving midwifery training and practice and maternal care throughout the world is the chief aim of the organisation for which she has been executive secretary since 1954. In this Miss Bayes believes the organisation has achieved some success. “Things are improving,” she said. “In 1954 only 20 per cent of mothers and babies received adequate care, now it is 60 to 65 per cent But it is going to take a long time.” Of the developing countries —with which the organisation is particularly concerned —those in Africa seemed the worst off for trained midwives per head of population. (World-wide, the count is highest in Russia.) EDUCATION FIRST “In the very underdeveloped countries general education must come first Until they educate their girls they cannot have trained midwives,” she said. However, some interesting schemes were under way to fill the gap. “In Libera they are training the traditional village birth attendant in modem methods, and in the Sudan illiterate girls are being trained as midwives. They are taught by constant repetition, touch, smell, and sight” The international confederation helps emerging groups of midwives form associations, draft constitutions, and helps development of the profession wherever possible. Delegates from developing countries are encouraged to , give papers at the organisa- : tion’s world congresses, held every three years. COOPERATION The organisation works 1 with the World Health Organ- 1 j isation, and the International I Federation of Obstetricians i and Gynaecologists with i

which it strives to improve midwifery training. Looking to the future, the organisation recommends compulsory refresher courses for midwives, so that they will be able to keep in touch with rapid, changes in the medical profession. They would also like to see family planning included in midwifery training. “The midwife is the person to advise and help? the mothers, and should* have training given by doctors within her course. She has daily contact with mothers, and could tell them how to go about getting assistance,” said Miss Bayes.