Coronavirus Resources for Midwives and Healthcare

We’re thrilled to be a part of the Devex Duty of Care series – a digital storybook that looks at how health systems can function better so that midwives and other healthcare workers are supported, protected, and empowered. 

We’ve been overwhelmed by the harrowing stories of midwives on the frontlines of this pandemic sent to us via our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.  

Stories from midwives like Ximena Rojas who looks after pregnant women on the volatile U.S.-Mexico border; and Georgia Gilliland Macad, a midwife who recently opened a non-profit birthing home in the Philippines to care for disadvantaged mothers and their newborns; and midwives from the Association Nationale des Sages-Femmes au Maroc who are currently supplying low-income pregnant and birthing women with gift baskets containing food and supplies for newborns.  

Please continue to share your stories with us and we will continue to share them with the global maternal health community. 

Now, more than ever, it’s important our community stays informed about the issues impacting midwifery, gender, and global development. Every week, we will be publishing a new post on our website stories from the previous seven days that we’ve deemed particularly relevant to midwives and midwifery. 

Midwives have a vital role to play in educating mothers and other caregivers about infant and young child feeding. However, health workers and health care facilities throughout the world are used by companies to promote breast-milk substitutes, such as infant formula.  

The WHO has developed This frequently asked questions (FAQ) document to provide midwives and other health workers with information on their specific roles and responsibilities in protecting breastfeeding practices against the inappropriate promotion of breastmilk substitutes by manufacturers and distributors. 

ResusRight Team – an international team of clinicians, engineers, researchers and midwives focused on the area of neonatal resuscitation – is developing a new technology to help train midwives and other healthcare professionals on the resuscitation of newborns. The organisation has carefully inspected and tested the efficacy and safety of a wide variety of resuscitation devices and identified some in use that are not fit for purpose. They have also considered ways to improve resuscitation training via manikins and are developing the ResusRight resuscitation training monitor that provides breath by breath visual feedback to users and trainers on mask leak and expired tidal volume.  

The ResusRight Team need the help of midwives to get this new training tool right for those who will use it in clinical settings. Please help by completing this short survey about your resuscitation training experiences and how you think they can be improved. THANK YOU MIDWIVES!