KARACHI, July 31: Lack of trained and qualified midwives in Pakistan is one of the major causes of the high incidence of maternal mortality in the country.

Health care experts and media personnel arrived at this conclusion at a seminar titled “Mobilizing Action Through the Media” jointly organized by the aegis of the National Committee for Maternal Health (NCMH) and UNICEF Sindh, here on Wednesday.

The participants acknowledged the fact that Dais (traditional birth attendants) attending around 80% of delivery cases in Pakistan should to be gradually replaced with adequately trained midwives in the country. It was also noted that despite the sufficient number of training schools not many trained midwives were being produced.

“Not more than 200 diploma holding midwives are passing out each year from some 40 different public and private training schools in Sindh only,” Ms Ilmiya Mughal, director nursing schools Sindh, said. The senior nurse also expressed her reservations about the quality of these midwives, maintaining that they might be theoretically trained, but practically were not well tuned to realise the seriousness of their responsibility.

Ms Ilmiya Mughal attributed the situation to the lack of interest shown by local gynaecologists and obstetricians in coaching these midwives.

“These training schools are well-equipped but lack committed and qualified trainers,” she said, adding that the dearth of translated and prescribed textbooks was also having its toll on the proficiency of trained graduates.

Mrs Imtiaz Kamal, a senior midwife and general secretary NCMH, mentioning that 85% of all deliveries were normal and could be performed by licensed midwives. She said that despite the heavy expenses involved in training Dais no positive change could be witnessed in the way they handled cases.

Earlier, speaking on maternal health status in Pakistan, Prof Dr. Sadiqa Jafarey, president NCMH, said: “There are approximately 32 million women in the reproductive age-group (15- 49 years) in the country and majority of them are poor and illiterate. Some 150 million women across the globe become pregnant every year; 585,000 of them die and the share in this of the women of the developing countries is nearly 99 per cent”. She said these deaths were due to haemorrhage, eclampsia, sepsis, ruptured uterus and abortion, which were ample proof of the inadequate maternal care.

She further said that just over half of 54 % of pregnant women in the country were fully immunized against tetanus and about 95 % of total births took place at home and attended by untrained and illiterate traditional birth attendants.

“Women in Pakistan will continue to have babies at home for a long time to come as it is a practice which is culturally entrenched in our society. Therefore, we need skilled health-care providers to carry them safely through pregnancy and childbirth in their own settings”, said Dr Sadiqa.—APP/ PPI