Save the Children

One in three women worldwide gives birth without expert help, a study from UK charity Save the Children suggests.

It said if a global shortage of 350,000 midwives were met, more than one million babies a year could be saved.

Some 1,000 women and 2,000 babies died every day from easily preventable birth complications - Afghanistan was the worst place to have a baby, it said.

The charity urged world leaders to show the political will to improve access to midwives and healthcare globally.
Save the Children, which is launching a campaign for more midwives, said more babies in poorer countries died from lack of oxygen at birth than from malaria.

It said women in the poorest countries were the least likely to have a skilled attendant present at delivery, were much more likely to lose their child and were the most likely to die during childbirth.
Save the children
n the UK - where there are 749,000 births a year - there are 26,825 working midwives, while in Rwanda, where 400,000 babies are born a year, there are only 46.