Midwives, especially in remote areas, have a crucial role to play in every country’s health system.

“Midwives have knowledge on maternal and child care. They have the competencies needed to handle normal deliveries in birthing facilities,” says Maria Teresa “Mhet” Padilla, National President of the Association of Philippine Schools of Midwifery (APSOM).

In the Philippines, at least 1 in 10 women are unable to give birth in health facilities or receive assistance from skilled healthcare personnel like midwives during childbirth, according to the 2022 National Demographic and Health Survey.

During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many health and government services were momentarily halted or shifted online especially in the field of education. This included the important training for midwifery educators. To address such gaps and to help strengthen midwifery education in the region, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Asia & Pacific, in partnership with the Burnet Institute, launched an online course for midwifery faculty members in 2020.

Mhet and other APSOM members were among the Filipino midwife educators who participated in the said Faculty Development Program. “The training program helped the faculty members during that time when they were having difficulty with the flexible learning,” she explains. The government encouraged educational institutions to roll-out flexible learning models but it was not something that could easily be done at that time in the Philippines.

Mhet says a core group of APSOM members attended the online training. Seeing how helpful the course was in improving their skills, including planning and developing their curriculum, the group asked UNFPA if they can help cascade the lessons to other Filipino midwife educators. Through online classes, APSOM was able to initially roll out the lessons to more than 200 of their faculty members.

“The training program enriched and enhanced the skills of the participants,” says Mhet. “The training sessions included strategies of flexible methods of teaching and learning, which helped the faculty in the implementation of flexible learning (during the pandemic).”

For their educators who were in far-flung areas with intermittent or poor internet connection, they augmented the lessons by requiring assignments or homework.

To maximize the impact of the online training, APSOM also had it recognized as a credit unit as part of the Continuing Professional Development accreditation system of the Professional Regulation Commission in the Philippines. This greatly benefited midwives who needed to have their licenses renewed.

Mhet says such trainings help midwifery education in the Philippines be at par with global standards. This in turn ensures that the country is able to provide safe, quality, competent, compassionate care to mothers and children.

Today, APSOM and UNFPA Philippines are exploring the possibility of further disseminating the Faculty Development Program in a face-to-face setting in the Philippines.

UNFPA is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. Its mission is to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled.