Originally published on the Frontline Health Workers Coalition blog.
Imagine being a novice midwife in rural Zambia. You’re working in a peripheral health center in a remote area where you are the only health worker. You are totally alone except for a cleaner and a guard. You regularly confront emergency obstetric and newborn care cases where there is no time for referral. You must act in the moment alone and do the best you can under sometimes dire circumstances.
“Some emergencies cannot b...
By Suzanne Stalls, CNM, MA, FACNM, ACNM Vice President of Global Outreach
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) draw to a close this year, and maternal and child health providers have much to reflect on for numbers 4 and 5.
Millennium Development Goal 5 is to reduce maternal mortality by 75%. Unfortunately, the global rate of maternal mortality has been falling annually at less than half of what would be required to achieve the goal. While the number of deaths has fallen significantly, ...
On Monday, June 17, ACNM Vice President for Global Outreach Suzanne Stalls, CNM, spoke at a congressional briefing sponsored by ACNM, AMREF USAI, AWHONN, Frontline Health Workers Coalition, IntraHealth International, Jhpiego, and White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood. Below is an excerpt of her comments. Her full text comments are available here.
I am pleased that we are here today to discuss the challenges that face women’s health access around the world and here in the United States. T...
By the ACNM Department of Global Outreach
The ACNM Department of Global Outreach will blog once a month about their projects in Ghana, Zambia, Burma, Namibia, and elsewhere, as well as keeping it all together back at home in the national office.
Last month’s International Day of the Midwife was an occasion for every midwife to think about the many others in the profession, to make new contacts within and outside midwifery, and to widen the knowledge of what midwives do for the world. T...
by Noreen Prokuski, CNM
The six of us jump into our 4x4 trucks for a bone-rattling, bumper-car ride inching up the rocky, twisting pathways leading to the hilltop village of Vipecbalam in the western highlands of Guatemala. Our local driver’s hands are confident on the wheel winding us back and forth through the mountain curves. The truck becomes silent as we hang on tight, awed by the scene.
In a few hours we are in the village, and somehow the term “remote” just doesn’t cover it. I think we...
