Midwife Connection

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...

by Angeline Fujioka, CNM, ACNM Technical Advisor, Department of Global Outreach Pervasive and dangerously silent human rights violations against women often occur during one of the most vulnerable times in a woman’s life: childbirth. Around the world this violation continues, irrespective of socio-economic boundaries, education levels of providers, religious and cultural values, and rural or urban borders. Many women have reported being yelled at, neglected, humiliated, beaten, slapped an...

by Diana Spalding, CNM, DGH Communication Section The Division of Global Health is excited to begin contributing to the ACNM blog! We will let you know about our upcoming events, news, and interesting work that midwives are doing around the globe. In collaboration with the Department of Global Outreach (DGO), the Division of Global Health (DGH) contributes to worldwide efforts to improve the health of women and children globally through the advancement of the profession of midwifery. DGH s...

by Cassie Moore, ACNM writer and editor Today, November 17, is World Prematurity Day. And although the United States improved its prematurity rates from 2006 to 2009, we’re nowhere near where we should be. A few weeks ago, as I was preparing to blog about our webinar on managing preterm labor, I was shocked to learn that premature birth has actually increased by 36 percent since the early 1980s. For all our gains in technology and knowledge, we’re doing so much worse in this area than we were 3...

by Cassie Moore, ACNM Writer and Editor Every day around the world, 1000 women and 2000 babies die from causes that could be prevented if only they had a midwife or other health care worker attending to them. ACNM recently sent a letter and petition to US Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius urging US government support for more midwives worldwide, but individual midwives can and should take action, too! This week, the United Nationals General Assembly is discussing the ...