Here's what we learned from listening to Midwives

Last week, midwives, health care providers, NGO staff and women from around the world tuned into our Midwives in Leadership event to engage with an impressive panel of midwife leaders making waves within the maternal and SRH sectors.

Thank you to our moderator, Sally Pairman, and our panelists, Eya Mwenifumbo Gondwe, Franka Cadée, Giorgia Cartes Bravo and Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, for sharing their personal challenges of achieving leadership roles and providing strategies on how midwives and women across all contexts can ascend to the top. 

The demand for this conversation is clear and encourages us to continue a transparent, story-based dialogue around midwives in leadership as we move into the Decade of the Midwife. 

• If you missed the Midwives in Leadership event or want to watch again, you can find the event recording here. 

• Visit the ICM Twitter feed for more quotes from our speakers.

• We need to identify and know our allies with the goal of creating a circle of people and organisations in our corner eager to work toward a shared vision of change. 

“In Chile, we worked hard to convey our importance as midwives to leaders in the Ministry of Health. It has been an interesting and challenging path, but validation from the Ministry of Health has been extremely important.” - Giorgia Cartes Bravo, Chief Midwife, Chile

• We must push and advocate for leadership that is diverse in every sense of the word — leadership can and must be representative of the people it serves. 

“If your leadership is reflective of the people you serve, you are on the road to achieving equitable health outcomes.” - Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, Chief Midwife Officer, England

• When we speak about midwifery, we must always position midwives as a solution to a problem: midwives deliver improved health outcomes, midwives are the best-suited healthcare providers to care for birthing women and newborns, midwives save lives. 

“We are here to stand with women and families. We are not here for ourselves.” - Franka Cadée, President, International Confederation of Midwives

• We can role model leadership and teach leadership in our pre-service programmes 

“Confidence is key: we must encourage our girls to speak up with full confidence and self-esteem.” - Eya Gondwe, Programs and Advocacy Manager, White Ribbon Alliance 

• We need to raise our visibility as midwives and recognize that we are all leaders and have the ability to advocate for systemic change. 

“We need to be humble, we need to be compassionate, we need to be brave.” - Sally Pairman, Chief Executive, International Confederation of Midwives

Stay tuned to your inbox and ICM social media channels for more information regarding our upcoming Women & Midwives webinar — a conversation with women and their midwives focusing on respectful maternity care and empowering women and all people who are pregnant and giving birth to make informed decisions.