More time for midwives

- The profession of the midwife is one of the oldest in the world. Despite its age-old and volatile history, even today it is still widely underestimated and misunderstood. Worldwide, midwives not only help women to give birth, but also play an important role in the health of mothers and their children.

In 2000, the United Nations announced eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG). These goals include the demand for a significant reduction in child and maternal mortality. To achieve this efforts have been made in subsequent years to improve the training and further qualifications of midwives, as well as the general access to becoming a midwife.

Although these ambitious targets were not fully met, the number of midwives increased and global maternal and infant mortality rates dropped by half between 1990 and 2015. Despite significant success, midwifery care remains inadequate in many regions. Approximately 1000 pregnant women and women in labor, and around 7000 newborn babies die daily - 99% of these are from developing countries.

The World Health Organization (WHO) claims that nationwide access to qualified midwives could prevent 83% of maternal and child deaths and stillbirths. In addition, according to WHO, if midwives were trained according to international standards, they could provide a large part of pre-and post-natal care, thus greatly contributing to female health.

However, the shortage of qualified midwives is not limited to developing countries. By now, even industrialized nations are affected. In many countries, freelance midwives lack comprehensive pregnancy care, which is highly valued by many women. With much patience, knowledge and experience, they look after women during their pregnancy and often assist during childbirth. Additionally, they care for mothers and their newborns after birth. However  low potential earnings, increasing insurance premiums, an intense workload and bureaucratic paperwork, force many midwives to quit. As a result, their availability can drop and the situation worsens, especially outside cities where pregnant women need long lead times to book a midwife.

In addition to a thorough education and good equipment, above all, midwives lack the time to do their work properly. Due to the shortage of staff and growing workloads in many places, time in clinical and outpatient care is becoming a scarce resource. Many of the structural problems of obstetrics can only be solved through a complex approach. Although, suitable measures can provide relief in the short term and simplify everyday work. These problems can be resolved through increased efficiency, such as routine examinations, including weighing and measuring. Regular check-ups of height and weight are an expected part of daily care for newborns and infants. Measuring the child once is not a difficult task, but when added on top of other tasks, this simple and supposedly fast process can cost a lot of time.

With respect to optimizing work processes and saving real time, seca developed the integrable scale seca 336 i. An optional barcode scanner identifies users and patients quickly and clearly. In combination with an analog (seca 232 n) or digital (seca 234) measuring rod, the weight and body size can be determined in just one step. In addition, the time-consuming and erroneous transfer of measured values is a thing of the past, thanks to the seca 336 i. After completing the measuring process, the data can be sent to a computer via WIFI and stored in a digital patient record (EMR), where it is available for all staff involved. The seca 336 i not only significantly improves patient safety, it also creates capacities that are urgently needed elsewhere.

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