Midwives on the front line: Health workers, humanitarians, heroes

Statement by UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem on the International Day of the Midwife (5 May 2025)

When bombs fall or floods wash away roads and homes, where services are severed and infrastructure has collapsed, midwives are often the first responders and the last line of defence. They often travel across even the most remote and dangerous terrain to ensure essential services that save lives and safeguard health and human rights. 

In humanitarian settings, women are twice as likely to die in childbirth. Deploying midwives as part of every humanitarian and national disaster response is a life-saving and cost-effective way to reduce preventable maternal deaths. 

Midwives can provide 90 per cent of essential sexual, reproductive, maternal and newborn health services, including family planning. They also support survivors of gender-based violence, which skyrockets during crises. 

Midwives often put themselves at enormous risk when they venture out to provide care to women and girls in hard to reach homes and communities in crisis settings.

Yet, midwifery is still not always recognized as the vital health profession it is. Chronic underinvestment in midwifery has translated to inadequate training, a lack of infrastructure and supplies, and low salaries – barriers that are present in times of stability and only grow worse in times of crisis.

Recent severe funding cuts to humanitarian assistance threaten to widen these gaps, with tragic impacts on women and girls in some of the world’s most challenging places. Already, midwives are reporting rising death rates among women and newborns in conflict zones and fragile contexts – an ominous sign in settings where over 60 per cent of global maternal deaths are reported. 

We know that midwives could avert two thirds of maternal and newborn deaths, while delivering vast economic and social benefits – from lower healthcare costs to more productive workforces. Women and entire societies would be both less vulnerable to crisis and more equipped to recover from it. 

On this International Day of the Midwife, we call on governments and donors to join UNFPA and partners in the Midwifery Accelerator initiative, which aims to increase financial and programmatic investments in midwives – and the systems that support them – before more lives are lost.

Midwives save lives. Let us work together to end the global shortage of nearly 1 million midwives and to ensure that we can end preventable maternal deaths once and for all.