Special Reports: Midwife campaign sparks hope for safe motherhood

The Bauchi State Impact Project aims to improve maternal and newborn health by training 100 people to become skilled birth attendants. Despite infrastructure challenges, the Project not only provides work and purpose to those trained, but also helps make childbirth safer by providing much-needed care.

The Mentor Mother Program in Siaya County, Kenya, trains women living with HIV to provide peer support, counseling, and treatment assistance to pregnant and breastfeeding mothers to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission. Mentor mothers serve as the link between communities and health facilities, tracking appointments, conducting home visits, running support groups and encouraging male partner testing. With the program’s help, the region’s transmission rate dropped from 21% in 2015 to 4.3% in 2022.

In 2025, Bauchi State launched the Impact Project to address Nigeria's maternal health crisis by deploying 100 Skilled Birth Attendants across 20 Local Government Areas, alongside free delivery kits and regular salary payments to increase access to professional childbirth care.

Jacquelyn Alvarado, a certified nurse midwife with the Texas A&M Rural and Community Health Institute, travels across Texas to teach rural hospital staff how to deliver babies. Using a mannequin, she runs simulations covering both routine and complicated deliveries for ER nurses, paramedics, and other non-obstetrical staff who may be the only help available when a rural patient goes into labor.

The Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council implemented a comprehensive national family planning program that offers integrated reproductive health services delivered through multiple channels including local clinics, mobile outreach units, community health workers, and youth-friendly centers. The program provides access to contraceptives, counseling, and peer education to address maternal mortality and unplanned pregnancy rates. Over the past decade, maternal mortality has dropped by 78%, and unintended pregnancies have also significantly decreased.

The Mamacare Foundation has trained over 860 traditional birth attendants (TBAs) in hygiene, safe delivery practices, danger-sign recognition, and timely referral systems over the past decade to improve maternal care in the region. The program pairs each TBA with a supervising midwife, creating a collaborative bridge between traditional and modern maternal care. The training has increased referrals from TBAs to clinics by 40%, and district hospitals report fewer emergency cases arriving in critical condition since the Foundation has formed.

Women volunteers with PHC Kara are going into the community to share important healthcare information with pregnant women, in an effort to improve maternal and infant mortality rates and health outcomes. The group has also received support and recognition from UNICEF’S Mama2Mama healthcare initiative and Rural Health Mission Nigeria, providing them with clean birth kits and other supplies to distribute to women.

Village Health Teams are groups of community health workers helping rural women access family planning services. They travel from home to home offering counseling, education and connection to the resources women need but struggle to access, including condoms and pills, often all without having to visit a health facility. VHTs have reached several thousand residents, both with short and long-term contraceptive methods.

Helpster Charity operates a tech-enabled emergency financing model that connects families facing urgent medical bills with donors through a website and app. The nonprofit uses volunteers stationed at partner health facilities to identify patients who can’t afford critical care for conditions like malaria, sickle cell anemia, and kidney problems. The organization has helped provide treatment for over 2,000 families across Nigeria, Kenya and Bangladesh.

Traditional birth attendants provide maternal care to women in hard to reach areas. With government help through the Mama2Mama program, several TBAs are undergoing training to provide safer, more effective maternal care.