Maternal & Infant Mortality Rate - Sindh needs 4,000 more CMWs: MNCH official

MN Report

KARACHI- “There is an urgent need to hire 4,000 more skilled community midwives (CMWs) for reducing maternal and infant mortality rate in Sindh,” said provincial manager for Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health (MNCH) Programme, Dr Sahib Jan Badar.

“Efforts are underway to seek approval for hiring 4,000 more CMWs from the provincial government,” she added.

Speaking at a function held to mark the “International Midwives Day”, she said that MNCH Programme, which is aimed at producing skilled birth attendants, called CMWs, began in 2007-8 and around 2,000 women trained, so far, are performing duties across the province. 

Deploring low literacy rate and social-barriers were biggest hurdles to extend the MNCH Programme in far-flung areas of the province, she urged the educated women to join community midwives profession so that they could play their role in improving maternal and neonatal health by removing the social-barriers of the society.

Claiming that a survey conducted recently showed that maternal and neonatal mortality ratio has declined in Sindh, Dr Sahib Jan said that 50 skilled CMWs are performing their duties in different areas of Tharparkar district.  

“Midwives are being trained to perform deliveries individually, promote health awareness, identify danger signs during delivery, provide care and family planning counseling and maintain a database at her work stations,” she explained.

“Major problem is to search educated women candidates from rural areas for training,” she added.