Report says that midwife shortage leads to 1 million deaths every year

April 4th, 2011 - 7:42 pm ICT by Aishwarya Bhatt  

New York, April 4 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Save the Children on Friday released a report that claimed that shortage of midwives throughout the world accounts for the loss of about 1.3 million babies every year.

The report identified that most women located at the Horn of Africa gave birth without the help of a trained midwife. Statistically, 94 percent of women at the Horn of Africa give birth without the help of a trained assistant. About 2 million women globally give birth every year all by themselves, the report noted.

The report further claimed that 1000 women die daily from childbirth complications that could have been prevented.

The chief executive of Save the Children foundation, Justin Forsyth, released a statement saying, “No mother should face giving birth without help. It doesn’t have to be complicated: someone who knows how to dry a baby properly and rub its back to help it breathe can make the difference between life and death. No child is born to die.”

Third world countries seem to be worse off when it comes to the shortage of midwives. In Rwanda for instance, the report identified that there are only 46 public midwives for 400,000 born in the country each year. In sharp contrast, only one percent of pregnant women in Britain give birth without a midwife.

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