Climate-Wise Care Module for Midwives
ICM, Maternity Foundation, and Direct Relief are working together to support midwives in responding to the growing impact of climate change on women and newborns.
Climate change is already affecting pregnancy and birth outcomes. Extreme heat, floods, and storms increase risks such as hypertension, preterm birth, and stillbirth. These events also disrupt access to care by damaging facilities, limiting transport, and cutting electricity or connectivity.
Midwives play a key role in these situations. They provide essential care within communities and often continue working when services are disrupted. This project focuses on giving midwives the tools they need to provide safe, quality care in these conditions.
At the centre of this work is a new Climate-Wise Care module in the Safe Delivery App. This free digital tool provides evidence-based guidance and training for midwives, especially in low-resource and remote settings. The new module will offer practical, easy-to-use guidance for maternal and newborn care in climate-affected environments.
The content is designed to support decision-making and preparedness during climate-related events. Once downloaded, the app works offline, ensuring midwives can access it during power cuts or network failures.
The module will launch first in global English and a Filipino national version, with more languages planned. The Safe Delivery App already reaches over 500,000 health workers worldwide, allowing this new content to support midwives at scale.
Maternity Foundation and ICM are leading the development of the module, with funding and implementation support from Direct Relief. ICM will also support rollout through its global network of midwives’ associations.
This project strengthens midwives’ ability to continue providing essential care in changing conditions, helping ensure women and newborns can access the services they need.
