Where Do Women Birth During a Pandemic?

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Where do women birth during a pandemic? Changing perspectives on Safe Motherhood during the COVID-19 pandemic

"Throughout this crisis, women will continue to become pregnant and give birth, deserving the same right to safe maternity services and compassionate care as they always have. This includes physical and emotional safety for the mother, baby and the birth partner. The interpretation of which strategies are associated with safe care is cause of a strong debate between those who argue for strengthening community and primary care services and those who recommend for centralization of births in hospitals..." Read the full article by Cris Alonso, MPH, CPM, published in the Journal of Global Health Science. A PDF is also available for download.

Cris Alonso, MPH, CPM founded the Luna Maya Birth Centers in Mexico. She collaborates with the Goodbirth Network supporting midwifery centers around the world. Currently she leads the Academic Public Health Volunteer Corps that supports the Massachusetts Department of Public Health´s and Governor Baker´s COVID Response initiatives. Cris is an author of the recently published "Open a Midwifery Center, A Manual for Launching and Operating Midwifery Centers in Global Settings", and attends Harvard University as a Doctor of Public Health student.

International Day of the Midwife | May 5, 2020

The International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) supports, represents and works to strengthen professional associations of midwives throughout the world. There are currently 143 Midwives' Associations, representing 124 countries across every continent.

The theme for International Day of the Midwife 2020 (IDM 2020) builds off the theme for the International Year of the Midwife 2020 – ‘Celebrate. Demonstrate. Mobilise. Unite.’ For IDM 2020, ICM will focus in more depth on how midwives and women can partner together to mobilise and unite toward a shared goal of gender equality. CELEBRATING IDM 2020 AMIDST COVID-19 (PDF)

"We need to take this partnership further. Women and Midwives must unite to demand political action for a gender-equal world."

Be Part of the Solution!

MANA has boots on the ground. We are working daily to improve access to the supplies you’ve told us you need, to create the resources you have asked for, and to better understand how the pandemic is affecting midwives and their clients.

In further response to the hardships being caused by COVID-19, and the renewed need for strong community and collaboration, we are slashing the price of new and renewal memberships for practicing midwives in half through June 15, 2020. We hope you will join us as we continue to work for midwives and our movement to 'Be Part of the Solution'. To bring the cost for practicing midwives down to $75/year, use the code MANA4Midwives to renew or sign up for a n ew membership. If you are renewing an existing membership, please log into mana.org and access your Member Dashboard.

We know that this is just a drop in the bucket, but we feel like right now every drop counts.

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