Untrained midwives deliver most babies in villages

SIXTY per cent of deliveries in villages are done by midwives who are not trained, United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) health specialist Dr Ghanashyam Sethy says.
Sethy said the health management information system did not capture community-based system clinics of the way women were giving birth in villages.
Only women giving birth and treated in hospitals are shown in the current record.
Sethy said traditional birth attendants helping women to deliver saw babies and mothers having complications and dying.
“They are not trained to conduct deliveries and take care of newborns and this is one of the areas that we need to strengthen in community maternal care,” Sethy said.
“We don’t have much of the idea what is happening in the community and how unskilled mid wives are delivering babies in the remote villages and communities.’’
He said statistics showed that only 40 per cent of mothers accessed hospitals to get proper treatment and normal delivery.
Sethy said the recent Essential Newborn Health Care in Mendi was training that promoted a package of services that included simple, cost-effective interventions which focused on improving the quality of healthcare.