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100 Years of Progress! ICM announces the theme for the International Day of the Midwife (IDM) 2022
The International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) is proud to celebrate next year’s International Day of the Midwife (IDM) on 5th May 2022 under the theme of “100 Years of Progress.” It’s been 100 years since the International Midwives Union (IMU) was created in Belgium, the forerunner of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM).
We look forward to coming together as a global midwife community to advocate for investment in quality midwifery care around the world, improving sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health in the process.
Stay tuned for additional resources to support your preparation for this year's #IDM.
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Calling all young midwives: Apply to the 2021-23 Young Midwife Leaders Programme
Following the feedback and actions from the previous Young Midwife Leaders programme (YML) ICM has revised the YML 2021-2023 programme. This YML programme will deliver enhanced advocacy training to young midwives while establishing linkages between the selected YMLs and the ICM Midwives’ Associations in their respective regions. To this end, the programme will pilot an Executive Leadership Training (EML) component where ICM Midwives’ Associations are paired with their local YML, fostering in-country mentorship and collaboration opportunities. Other notable changes to this version of the programme include:
- 15 early-career midwives instead of just 10
- An Alumni Network consisting of former YMLs brought in periodically to support the new cohort and collaborate with ICM on various activities
- Enhanced leadership development through workshops with external experts in a number of areas, including, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning.
A bit of background on the YML programme:
The YML Programme is a two-year programme that supports a cohort of young midwives to develop their skills as leaders both professionally and personally. Created by ICM with support from Johnson & Johnson Foundation, with the programme challenges young midwives globally to broaden their knowledge of key policy areas in maternal and newborn health and supports their innovative projects to address some of the biggest global health challenges of today.
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REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL: Research Services for Midwife-Led Birthing Centre (MLBC) project
(ICM) is seeking the service of a suitably qualified Research Team to carry out a research project on Midwife-Led Birthing Centres (MLBC) through undertaking comprehensive literature review, data collection, data analysis and documentation of existing models operating in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). The Research Team is also expected to conceptualise an effective Midwife-Led birthingcentre model, undertake a costing exercise and identify steps to scale upsuch a model by developing a Theory of Change.
Deadline for Submission: Please submit your proposal specifying methodology, work plan for deliverables, fees and experience of undertaking similar assignments to admin@internationalmidwives.org.
The deadline for submitting proposal is 21st November 2021.
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Former president of the Afghan Midwives Association Zahra Mizraei fled Afghanistan when the Taliban took over, and is now in a camp in Spain. Photograph: Katie Cox/The Guardian
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ICM's Statement on Afghanistan
During times of political upheaval and conflict situations, women and girls are at a much higher risk of violence, sexual violence, displacement, poverty, and even death. Midwives, as defenders of women's sexual and reproductive health and rights are particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses.
Over the past several weeks, ICM leadership has been in close communication with midwives in Afghanistan, listening to their harrowing experiences of their efforts to uphold care for women and newborns.
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ICM's Statement on COVID-19 Vaccination
As of September 2021,?available data?from 119 countries suggest that two in five health and care workers were fully vaccinated on average, with considerable difference across regions and economic groupings. Fewer than 1 in 10 have been fully vaccinated in the African and Western Pacific regions, while 22 mostly high-income countries reported that above 80% of their personnel are fully vaccinated.?This disparity is largely as a result of unequal?vaccination?distribution?between wealthy and poor countries??
ICM has outlined a series of considerations and recommendation?related?to COVID-19 vaccine and a midwives’ duty of care?to?provide?high-quality, evidence-based?services and information?to women and?newborns.
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COP26: Midwives and the Impact of Climate Change
From Sunday, 31 October to Friday, 12 November, the COP26 Summit will bring parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
On the occasion of the COP26 Summit, ICM emphasises the role that midwives play in providing environmentally sustainable healthcare. The Midwife-led model of care is innately environmentally sustainable, promoting normalised birth that relies on few medical interventions and resources. Additionally, midwives are often community-based primary care practitioners that provide health services where women and their families work and live. This limits the carbon footprint associated with traveling to and from health facilities.
We need to return to community-based models of care if we want to build back better from the COVID-19 pandemic and protect our communities from future health threats and climate events. Put simply, investing in midwives and their status and autonomy is investing in solutions to the impacts of climate change.
In support of the urgent climate actions that must be taken to protect the prosperity of women, girls and all people, ICM has also signed on to the #HealthyClimate Prescription Letter and we encourage our associations to do the same.
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Sign up to PUSH for Midwives
The newly announced PUSH Campaign wants to give you the opportunity to stay connected to a global movement for midwives and the women they care for. We recognise that the first and most important step in achieving any of our campaign objectives is to ensure that our community is informed about the global issues impacting women and the midwives who care for them. On the final Friday of every month, the new PUSH Newsletter will deliver the latest news and updates about:
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Feminist advocacy
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Midwifery and women’s sexual and reproductive healthcare and rights
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Midwifery education and training
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Midwifery work environments and professional autonomy
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The PUSH Campaign
PUSH is a decade-long global movement for women and the midwives who protect and uphold their rights and bodily autonomy. PUSH will accelerate progress on reducing maternal and neonatal mortality, advance SRHR, address key barriers to women’s leadership in the global health workforce, and shift underlying gender norms that undervalue women’s rights, lives and work.
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Upcoming Regional Meetings and Advocacy Workshops
The presidents and leaders of our Midwives’ Associations will have received (or will receive shortly) an invitation to attend one of six regional meetings and advocacy workshops taking place throughout the remainder of 2021. The regional meeting will? discuss how the ICM Head Office Regional?Team?and the Board Member will work together with the region, and the advocacy and data workshop will provide midwives with data and advocacy training to enhance and inform their advocacy efforts. Both of these conversations will take place as part of one event, for each of ICM’s six regions.
Each ICM MA, along with a specified number of its members, is invited to attend one of the upcoming event dates:
- Thursday 4th November: Western Pacific Region - 05:30 - 09:00 CET (13.30 - 17.00 Tokyo)
- Wednesday 17th November: African Region - 14:30 – 18:00 CET (15:30 – 19:00 Nairobi)
- Wednesday 24th November: European Region - 09:30 – 13:00 CET (08:30 – 12:00 London)
- Wednesday 8th December: Region of the Americas - 17:00 – 20:30 CET (08:00 – 11:30 Vancouver)
For more information about these events, please reference the formal invitation your association will have received through its ICM contact person. If you have yet to receive an invitation, please stay tuned as one will be shared via email with your association shortly.
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The Swedish Midwifery Report has been published!
The Swedish Midwifery report 2021 - The midwife's role in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda, aims to present action taken to increase and promote sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and support the policy dialogue around sexual, reproductive and perinatal health in Sweden.
The report gives an insight into the midwife's role in implementing the UN 2030 Agenda in Sweden. It aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the UN Secretary General's Global Strategy of Women's and Children's Health. The World Health Organization (WHO) extended the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife (2020) to the year of the Health and Care Workers 2021 with the slogan Protect, Invest, Together, while the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) came to name it the Decade of the Midwife. It is an opportunity to leverage the Swedish midwife-led interdisciplinary model of care in a hub and spoke system and commit to an Agenda that will drive progress to 2030 and beyond.
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Every month, our Board prepares a briefer to keep our global midwife community informed about its activities and the strategic direction of ICM. This month's briefer was prepared by ICM Board member Dr. Roa Fouad Altaweli.
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