Parteria profesional y autorregulacion professional midwifery & self-regulation: report on an International Conference hosted by the CASA Professional Midwifery School, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico in June 2002.

Executive summary

Over decades now, data produced from prospective and other studies has pointed up that midwives provide safe, low intervention and economical care in multiple settings. In 1997, the Safe Motherhood Inter-Agency Group (IAG) carded out a technical consultation to review and articulate the lessons learned since the inauguration of the global Safe Motherhood Initiative in 1987. It was declared that the most efficient means to prevent almost all maternal deaths is to ensure skilled care during childbirth; defining skilled care as care by a professional health worker such as a midwife, nurse, or doctor who possesses midwifery skills. Yet, numerous countries, especially in the developing world, do not have national programs geared to training midwives and including them in the public health system. In fact, there is a decreasing number of midwives and nurses worldwide, which is negatively affecting an already overtaxed global health care system.

In response to this situation the CASA Professional Midwifery School, a national pilot project in Mexico dedicated to producing new midwives who combine the best of traditional midwifery practices with up-to-date medical knowledge, hosted an international conference in June 2002. The aim of the conference was to inspire and encourage North American and Latin American countries to consider the formation and certification of midwives and the incorporation of the midwifery model of care into their individual public health systems. CASA spearheaded the organising committee and is grateful to the United States Agency for International Development, the principal sponsor of the conference.

Over 170 people from 13 countries participated, the majority from Mexico and Central America; 50% of the participants from governmental agencies, 30% from non-governmental and 20% from the general public with experience in professional midwifery or related fields. There was enthusiastic representation from national institutions and international organizations such as WHO, ICM, Midwife Alliance of North America, American College of Nurse Midwives and the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Importantly, traditional midwives were also included in the conference both as participants and speakers.

Dr. Lourdes Quintanilla, Director of Reproductive Health for the National Health Ministry in Mexico, representing Dr. Julio Frenk Mora, Mexico's national health minister, opened the three-and-a-half day...