PHNOM PENH, May 12 (Xinhua)—Some 350 midwives from across the country gathered here on Thursday to mark the national midwife day.
The celebration was held under the theme: “midwives walking the world for safer maternal care” in order to express gratitude to midwives for their efforts to have pregnant women to deliver babies safely, Mam Bunheng, minister of health, said during the event.
He said that the percentage of baby deliveries by skilled midwives has increased from 44 percent in 2005 to 71 percent in 2010, while baby deliveries at health centers have increased from 22 percent in 2005 to 54 percent last year.
The increase in baby deliveries with skilled midwives and health staff have helped reduce the death number of babies aged below one month from 28 babies on 1,000 live births in 2005 to 27 babies in 2010, and the death number of babies aged under one year has declined from 65 babies on 1,000 live births in 2005 to 45 babies last year, he added.
“The good results are thanked to our efforts in taking care of both mother and child health before, during, and after baby delivery,” said the minister.
Speaking during the celebration, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s wife Bun Rany, president of Cambodian Red Cross, said that mother and child death has occurred mostly in the country’s remote areas as there have the shortage of midwives and health centers.
“For urban areas, there have been enough health services and skilled midwives, most of baby deliveries are safe” she said. “But our concern is in rural and remote areas, where we don’t have skilled midwives and they are far away from health centers.”
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