Amref Health Africa has launched the Stand Up for African Mothers campaign to train more midwives, because midwives save lives. We estimate an Amref Health Africa-trained midwife can provide care to 500 mothers a year on average. With the campaign, Amref Health Africa strives to train 15,000 additional midwives to contribute to a reduction in maternal mortality by 25% in sub-Saharan Africa.
Every year in Sub-Saharan Africa, 200,000 mothers die as a result of complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Because of this high maternal mortality rate, almost 950,000 children are left without a mother every year. Most of these deaths are easily preventable, as they are mainly caused by insufficient health care.
To efficiently reduce these numbers, Amref Health Africa has launched the Stand Up for African Mothers campaign to train more midwives, because midwives save lives. An Amref Health Africa-trained midwife can provide antenatal services - including examination of the mothers, referral services, counseling of HIV-positive mothers, nutritional education, maternity services, including delivery; and post-natal care. We estimate one of these midwife can provide care to 500 mothers a year on average.
With the Stand Up for African Mothers campaign, Amref Health Africa strives to train 15,000 midwives to contribute to a reduction in maternal mortality by 25%. Amref Health Africa works with the ministries of health in every country to not only train midwives, but to ensure they have a job when they graduate. Ultimately, the trained midwives will be able to reach more than 7 million women.
