To coincide with National Home Birth day on 6th June, Birmingham City University’s Midwifery Department will be hosting the 2nd Annual Home Birth Symposium. The conference is aimed at midwives, student midwives, maternity support workers, doulas, obstetricians, GPs and anyone wanting to update their knowledge and practice in relation to home birth.

All funds raised from the symposium will be donated to the Fernandez Foundation, a group of hospitals that train midwives and provide respectful maternity care in Hyderabad, India. Birmingham City University are partnered with Fernandez to assist with education, reciprocal visits and the development of professional midwifery where provision is poor.

In communities everywhere, it’s a basic human right of every single woman, baby and family to experience the best and safest care possible during pregnancy and birth, and midwifery is indeed a global profession (NMC, 2019). But in India, the Maternal mortality rate is high at 130 per 100,000 live births – with an ambition to decrease this to 70. In addition, by the age of 5 years 50 per 1,000 children die, again the ambition is to decrease this to 11. Only 62% of babies are immunised at 12 – 24 months of age as opposed to the aim of 100%. In Telangana state though (where Fernandez is), and where this project is taking place, the statistics are looking brighter, with maternal mortality at 81 and the death rate of children at 32. However, there are only 143.15 government workers per 100,000 population, whereas the average in India is 221 and the aim is 550, and midwives should be part of this (UN, 2018).

The inspiring work of Dr Evita Fernandez and Indie Kaur, Director of Midwifery can be found here: https://www.fernandezhospital.com/