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Press release from Ministry for Foreign Affairs

Midwives4all - a global campaign for change

Published Updated

This week the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs is launching a global campaign: midwives4all.

In 2013 alone, 289 000 women died from childbirth complications. Nearly 3 million newborns die in the first month of life and 2.6 million newborns are stillborn each year. The vast majority of these women and children lose their lives due to complications and illnesses that could have been prevented. Expanding the ranks of well–trained midwives working alongside other health professionals could save thousands of lives every year. And yet in too many countries this profession still doesn’t exist.

The aim of midwives4all is to get more people, organisations and stakeholders to actively advocate for midwifery services, and help ensure that more people have access to a midwife when they need one. We also want to raise awareness of what a midwife is and can do, thus increasing demand globally for midwifery services.

Midwives4all will use a coordinated and innovative communication approach to highlight the need to implement universal midwifery care in order to improve maternal and newborn health and empower women.

Sweden has a long tradition of involvement in this issue through various stakeholders, not least in capacity-building and financing through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida.

The campaign will be pursued both digitally and through events at Swedish embassies across the globe.

The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs is working closely with Sida, the team behind The Lancet’s evidence-based series on midwifery, and other key actors in this field.

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