>From Women's E News Irene Lew is editorial intern and Nouhad Moawad is Arabic intern at Women's eNews.
Half of the world's pregnant women still lack access to skilled care at childbirth, contributing to a high number of women and infants who continue to die every day, according to the United Nations Population Fund. There are 529,000 maternal deaths in the world annually. Large numbers of poor Nigerian women are giving birth without the help of trained medical professionals, and only 12 percent of the poorest 20 percent have access to skilled medical care during childbirth, according to the United Nations Development Program's 2006 report. Rather than going to a hospital, women are giving birth in churches and in their own homes because they cannot afford medical help, the Nigerian newspaper Daily Trust reported Dec. 13. In order to reduce maternal and newborn mortality, midwives and public health experts from 20 countries around the world have gathered in Tunisia for the first-ever International Forum on Midwifery in the Community. The World Health Organization estimates that 334,000 more midwives are needed around the globe to reduce maternal and newborn death and disability. "A strong midwifery profession is key to achieving safer childbirth, and all pregnant women should have access to a midwife," said Thoraya Obaid, head of the U.N. Population Fund. World Health Organization, Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health: http://www.who.int/pmnch/en/ Heartlogic www.heartlogic.biz Phone: +61 2 43893919 PO Box 5405 Chittaway Bay, NSW 2261 "As a single footstep will not make a path in the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over again the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives" Henry David Thoreau