“Midwifery is what women want and what the world needs,” said Anneka Knutsson, Chief, Sexual and Reproductive Health Branch, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) at the Fourth Global Midwifery Symposium held at Women Deliver on June 2, 2019. More than 200 people, mostly midwives and global midwifery experts, attended the symposium titled, “Empowered Midwives, Transformed Communities.” Organized by UNFPA, the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), and World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with Jhpiego, UNICEF, Laerdal, and the Canadian Association of Midwives, the all-day symposium highlighted how the midwife-led continuity of care model and women-centered care can improve outcomes for women, their newborn, and their families. The discussion also focused on the importance of enabling environments and productive collaborations between midwives and other health professionals.

The ongoing crisis at our southern border is exacerbating another, less visible, one—the crisis in elder and childcare in the United States. With baby boomers aging and more parents of young children working outside the home, our country’s need for non-familial caregivers is skyrocketing. Carework is growing five times faster than any other sector in our economy; in fact, it is set to become the largest paid occupation in the U.S. by next year. While US citizens are not keen to take these jobs, migrants, especially women, are. But the current bottleneck—not just at the border but throughout our immigration system—is slowing down the flow of these vital workers.

“The Guttmacher-Lancet Commission could not come at a better time,” said Patricia Da Silva, Associate Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation United Nations Liaison Office. “It is indeed the call to action that is required; showing us that comprehensive sexual and reproductive rights must be ensured for all.” She spoke at a recent Wilson Center event on the work of the Guttmacher-Lancet Commission on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). The Commission, an international collaboration of 16 SRHR experts from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America, recently published a report, Accelerate Progress—Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All, which makes concrete recommendations for countries to address SRHR gaps and inequalities.

Since 1987, the number of women dying during pregnancy and delivery has dropped by 43 percent, saving hundreds of thousands of women’s lives—and changing the lives of their families—around the world. “Our achievement in making maternal mortality an injustice that needs to be recognized by health ministers, by heads of state, by heads of agencies, has been, I think, the single greatest achievement of the Safe Motherhood Initiative” since it began 30 years ago, said Ann Starrs, President and CEO of Guttmacher Institute, at a Wilson Center event marking the anniversary of this important effort.

The burden of care—the time, energy, and costs of caring for other people—is growing, and women shoulder the heaviest load. This burden can have negative consequences for businesses, too, as it affects the health and productivity of workers, as well as economic growth. At a recent Wilson Center Ground Truth Briefing, four leading experts discussed the ways in which progressive policies could help balance the burden of care to increase economic productivity and benefit both employers and employees.

If women have non-communicable diseases (NCDs)—like cancer and diabetes—“at the time of pregnancy, [it] can hugely impact future generations,” said Adya Misra the associate editor of PLOS One at a recent event hosted by the Maternal Health Task Force (MHTF) to mark the launch of the fifth MHTF-PLOS collection, Non-Communicable Diseases and Maternal Health Around the Globe. “If we do not address NCDs in a maternal health continuum of care, we will, for so many issues, be short changing the progress we have seen [in maternal health] because NCDs are on the rise,” said Katja Iversen, president and CEO of Women Deliver.