May 7 – Despite the considerable global progress towards reducing maternal mortality by 75% by 2015, sub-Saharan Africa lags dramatically behind. Still today 162.000 mothers die each year from lack of proper care during pregnancy and childbirth, a figure that represents 56% of the global total. In other words, 5 mothers in 1000 continue to lose their lives in giving life, while another 150 develop serious complications in the long term. More than 80% of these deaths are the result of complications that could be easily prevented or treated in health centers equipped with obstetric services. The insufficient number of midwives, the lack of information and education on the need for prenatal care and the importance of giving birth in a medical center with competent staff, the distance of health centers and the lack of adequate transportation means when labor starts, pregnancies that are numerous and close together in time because there is no adequate family planning… These are just some of the causes of death in Sub-Saharan Africa. Midwives are an essential resource for the provision of family planning and sex education, to prevent or treat complications such as bleeding, infection, high blood pressure, malaria or anemia, all controllable factors with appropriate monitoring of pregnancy and childbirth. For this reason, AMREF promotes the international campaign Stand Up for African Mothers. This has the specific goal of training 15.000 midwives by 2015 thus contributing to a 25% reduction of maternal mortality in Africa. Once formed, each midwife can assist 500 women per year and give birth safely to hundreds of children. The training programs are held in Angola, Burundi, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Ethiopia, Senegal, and Kenya. Thanks to all those who have supported the campaign in 2012, 2845 midwives already completed their training organized by AMREF. In remote areas, where there isn’t adequate school infrastructure, the courses take place through a specific e-learning platform called Amref Virtual Training School (AVTS). Today AVTS is considered a center of excellence in nursing science, making accessible to all continued education through innovative methods.
