By Kieran Guilbert
DAKAR, May 3 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Boosting the number of midwives in Nigeria, and globally, would reduce the number of stillbirths and women dying during or just after giving birth, according to the founder of women's rights organisation Wellbeing Foundation Africa.
Midwives can provide the majority of the services needed for newborns and pregnant women and those cared for by midwives are less likely to have complicated births or go into labour early.
Toyin Saraki spoke to the Thomson Reuters Foundation ahead of this week's Global Midwifery Conference in Abuja, which is hosting its first global conference on midwifery.
"Midwives will be the army to change dire health outcomes, if we invest in them and provide them with skills," she said.
To mark International Day of the Midwife on May 5, here are some facts about childbirth, maternal mortality and midwifery:
* In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman is 100 times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than one from an industrialised country.
* Around 800 women and more than 8,000 newborns die every day due to largely preventable complications during pregnancy, childbirth and the immediate postnatal period.
* Since 1990, maternal death has dropped by 44 percent and the death of children under five by 41 percent.
* In 2013, there were an estimated 2.6 million stillbirths, 3 million newborn deaths and 289,000 maternal deaths.
* Seventy-three countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America account for 96 percent of the world's maternal deaths, 91 percent of stillbirths and 93 percent of newborn deaths.
* Yet these countries only have 42 percent of the world's doctors, midwives and nurses.
* There are two doctors and 11 nurses or midwives for every 10,000 people in Africa, compared with 19 doctors and 49 nurses or midwives per 10,000 in the Americas, and 32 doctors and 78 nurses or midwives per 10,000 in Europe.
* Only one in five countries have enough adequately educated midwives to meet the basic needs of women and newborns.
* More than one third of all births around the world take place without a midwife or other skilled health staff.
* Investing in midwifery education could yield a 16-fold return on investment in terms of lives saved and costs of caesarean sections avoided. Sources: World Health Organisation, United Nations Population Fund. (Reporting By Kieran Guilbert, Editing by Katie Nguyen; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)
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