Dutch midwives team up with their Sierra Leonean counterparts

A collaboration between Dutch and Sierra Leonean midwives is facing closure due to a lack of funding. The twinning programme between the Sierra Leone Midwives Association (SLMA) and the Royal Dutch Organisation of Midwives (KNOV) is aimed at implementing innovative projects to reduce the maternal mortality rate in Sierra Leone.

The Dutch midwives have been training newly qualified Sierra Leonean midwives to recognise the signs of potential complications in pregnancy and labour. The programme was recently strengthened by the pairing of 25 midwives from both countries.

Training and supporting Sierra Leone's midwives requires money and, over the last three years, the Dutch government has made a significant contribution towards reproductive health programmes in Sierra Leone. However, Franca Cadée, International Project Coordinator of the Royal Dutch Organisation of Midwives, says that funding for this programme will cease in 2013, so the two organisations are trying to devise their own strategy in order to continue the twinning project.

By establishing the twinning project, Sierra Leone hopes to reduce the mortality rates of pregnant women and newborn babies, and improve the practice of midwifery in the country. According to Amnesty International, Sierra Leone has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, with one in eight women facing a lifetime risk of dying during pregnancy or childbirth. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates the maternal mortality rate in Sierra Leone to be around 1,000 per 100,000 live births.

The WHO and the International Confederation of Midwives have reiterated the importance of qualified midwives in reducing infant and maternal mortality rates worldwide. However, only a minority of births in Sierra Leone are attended by trained medical professionals.

Midwives are needed to provide basic services that can help improve the health of women during pregnancy and labour. Unlike their Sierra Leonean counterparts, Dutch midwives understand the importance of providing prenatal care and advice to women during pregnancy and labour. There are also many more midwives in the Netherlands available to assist pregnant women and their families.

"By setting up this midwife twinning programme, our aim is to work closely with the midwives in Sierra Leone to give effective counselling and support to women during pregnancy and childbirth, to ensure they and their babies receive better care," says Franka Cadée, International Project Coordinator of the Royal Dutch Organisation of Midwives. The collaboration between the two midwives' organisations has reached a new level, she says, and a new training school designed to enhance the professionalism of newly-qualified midwives in Sierra Leone has been established in Makeni, in Northern Sierra Leone, supported by Cordaid and the Maastricht midwives academy.

However, Cadée also cited other factors -- ranging from the lack of coordination between medical practitioners to inadequate planning -- that are impeding the work of midwives in Sierra Leone. If Sierra Leonean midwives are not supported by an enabling environment, she says, a new government policy to give free medical treatment to pregnant and lactating women and children under five will be meaningless.

For the time being, 25 members of the two midwives organisations have been working together via video link, sharing knowledge and skills necessary to providing good care and counselling to women during pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period.