The Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Dr Natalia Kanem, has raised alarm over a global shortage of nearly one million midwives.
Kanem made this known in a statement on Monday to mark the International Day of the Midwife, celebrated globally on May 5.
The 2025 theme, “Midwives: Critical in Every Crisis,” highlights the indispensable role midwives play in humanitarian and emergency settings around the world.
According to Kanem, midwives are capable of delivering up to 90 per cent of essential sexual, reproductive, maternal, and newborn health services, including family planning.
“They also support survivors of gender-based violence, which skyrockets during crises,” she added.
She noted that midwives often put themselves at great risk to reach women and girls in remote or crisis-affected communities.
However, in spite of their life-saving role, midwifery remains under-recognised, a challenge that worsens during emergencies.
Kanem said chronic underinvestment in midwifery had led to inadequate training, poor infrastructure, a lack of essential supplies, and low wages.
She warned that in humanitarian settings, women were twice as likely to die in childbirth, and deploying midwives in both humanitarian and national disaster responses was a cost-effective, life-saving strategy.
She further expressed concern over recent severe funding cuts to humanitarian aid, warning that they risked widening already significant gaps and having tragic consequences for women and girls in the world’s most vulnerable regions.
“Already, midwives are reporting rising death rates among women and newborns in conflict zones and fragile contexts, an ominous sign in places where more than 60 per cent of global maternal deaths occur,” she said.
Kanem stressed that midwives could prevent two-thirds of maternal and newborn deaths, while also delivering broad economic and social benefits, ranging from lower healthcare costs to a more productive workforce.
“Women and entire societies would be both less vulnerable to crisis and more equipped to recover from it,” she said.
She called on governments and donors to join UNFPA and its partners in the Midwifery Accelerator initiative, which aimed to increase financial and programmatic investment in midwifery before more lives were lost.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the International Day of the Midwife was established in 1992 by the International Confederation of Midwives to celebrate and raise awareness of the midwifery profession.(NAN)
