Investing in Midwives’ Associations
Midwives’ associations advocate for investments in midwives with the goal of sustainably integrating continuity of midwife care services into health systems at the local, national, regional, and international level. This is critical to ensuring that women and communities have access to quality sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health (SRMNAH) services that uphold their health and human rights.
What are midwives’ associations?
ICM defines a midwives’ association (MA) as a professional association of midwives that is the voice for midwives, supporting midwives, building professionalism and representing the interests of midwives to governments and other stakeholders. The ultimate goal of an MA is to enhance personalised, high-quality SRMNAH services through autonomous, responsible and accountable midwives working across their full scope of practice.
Midwives’ associations are usually women-led, organised as non-profit, civil society organisations with voluntary membership, that act as agents of change.
What do midwives’ associations do?
- Strengthen health systems by advocating for and by offering practical support to policy makers on how to integrate midwives into health systems to be able to respond to the SRMNAH needs of communities
- Reduce stillbirths, maternal and neonatal mortality by improving the quality of continuity of midwife care and community trust of midwives and health services, through providing quality, evidence-based continuing education for midwives
- Improve gender equality by advocating for improved working conditions for midwives and championing broader issues that impact gender equality, such as access to sexual and reproductive health services
- Respond to crises by providing critical reproductive health care services during humanitarian and climate crises, ensuring that women and girls can attain their human right to health and dignity even in the most difficult circumstances
Despite the evidence showing the positive impact of continuity of midwife care, governments and stakeholders often don’t understand the role midwives can play in improving SRMNAH outcomes. This lack of understanding restricts funding and resourcing for midwives, and, ultimately, restricts their participation in policy and decision making. It also results in poor or no integration of continuity of midwife services into health systems, causing a lost opportunity for providing high quality care to women and newborns.
Individual midwives can only be strong if they have a professional organisation that is able to support them and advocate on their behalf. If we want to take advantage of the enormous impact midwives can have, we need to invest in midwives’ associations.
This Policy Brief shows that when MAs have resources as well as strong organisational and technical capacity, they can be catalysts for the integration of continuity of midwife care into health systems and provide localised, collaborative, responsive and equitable approaches to improve the quality of SRMNAH care. This Policy Brief also provides guidance for donors, governments, and other key stakeholders on creating impactful collaborations to improve gender equality and health outcomes for women and girls.
