Midwives are Key Towards an EU Strategy for Women’s Health 

Why an EU Strategy for Women’s Health is needed now 

The report makes the case for the European Union to adopt a comprehensive approach to women’s health for the first time through a dedicated strategy. It highlights that while women live longer than men on average, they spend a greater proportion of their lives in poor health due to persistent gaps in prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and research that fail to adequately reflect women’s needs across the life course. It highlights the need for a life-course approach to health, stronger prevention and health promotion, better research and data, and action on the social and economic factors that shape women’s health outcomes. 

Sexual and reproductive health and rights are a central pillar of the proposed strategy. The report calls for improved access to contraception, abortion care, pregnancy and birth care, postnatal health, and respectful, evidence-based models of care across the EU. It also recognises the role of the health workforce, including education, training, and workforce planning, in improving women’s health outcomes. 

Midwives recognised as essential  

The recommendations place a strong emphasis on a life‑course approach to women’s health, recognising that women’s health needs evolve from adolescence through adolescence, pregnancy, childbirth, the postnatal period, and into later years. Midwives are among the few health professionals trained to provide this continuity of care across a woman’s lifetime. 

That is why ICM worked closely with partners contributing to the recommendations to ensure that midwives and midwifery are explicitly included. We are pleased to see midwives recognised as essential providers of sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health services, and as central to delivering accessible, high‑quality care for women across the life course. The strategy highlights the importance of access to full‑scope midwifery care, including during pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period, and acknowledges the role of midwives in prevention, health promotion and continuity of care. This builds on the recent inclusion of midwives in the EU Strategy for Gender Equality, where they are recognised as key to advancing women’s health. Both highlight the importance of access to full‑scope midwifery care, including before and during pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period, and acknowledges the role of midwives in prevention, health promotion and continuity of care. 

Call to action 

We welcome the inclusion of midwives in these first recommendations for an EU Strategy for Women’s Health and call on the EU to move from recommendations to action. We urge EU institutions and Member States to implement this strategy in a way that strengthens women’s access to midwifery care and improves health outcomes across Europe. 

As part of this process, we also reiterate calls in both Strategies for the EU to prioritise the update of the EU Directive on Midwifery in alignment with ICM Global Standards, which is currently undergoing technical discussions within the European Commission. Unfortunately, the update has not been prioritised in the Commission’s 2026 Agenda; ICM and partners continue to advocate for it to appear on the Commission’s 2027 Agenda. The Directive sets the minimum education requirements, to explicitly align with ICM Global Standards and the Essential Competencies for Midwifery Practice. This is essential to ensure midwives make an impact on women’s health and health system stability, while prioritising what studies have shown women in Europe and globally want – continuity of midwife care.