PAHO Launches Book on Professional Midwifery in Spanish

Washington, D.C., May 24, 2006 (PAHO)—The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) today launched the Varney's Professional Midwifery textbook in Spanish, in conjunction with the Pan American Health and Education Foundation (PAHEF), its PALTEX textbook program, and with financial support provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Published in Spanish for the first time, the 4th edition of Professional Midwifery will be made available to more than 500 educational centers in 20 countries of the Americas, in an effort to increase the proportion of births that are attended by qualified personnel, said Dr. Gina Tambini, who heads PAHO's Family and Community Health area.

She noted that the last 10 years have been crucial in promoting a process designed to improve maternal and neonatal health, and that the new text, which brings together information for expertise needed at birth, will help all those involved in maternal health to unite in an effort to provide women and children in the Americas with the best possible quality care.

The event launching the new book was attended by its principal author, Dr. Helen Varney, and co-authors Jan M. Kriebs and Carolyn L. Gegor. Also present was Margaret Marshall, a manager at USAID with a long-standing professional relationship with PAHO, whose efforts to publish the book in Spanish were essential for the project, first suggested in 1986 by Marshall to Dr. Varney.

Varney said she was grateful to the Pan American Health Organization. "I cannot begin to tell you what it means to me that my book is translated into Spanish". Since its first publication in 1980, Varney said, "the book has doubled in size and in relevance", and now in Spanish, it will help all those involved in caring for pregnant women and their children. "I want to give a very special word of thanks to PAHO, for having gone from talk to action".

Dr. Virginia Camacho of PAHO, advisor on the regional initiative to reduce maternal mortality, said the new textbook "is an important contribution to strengthen competencies of health professionals, especially midwives and obstetric nurses who attend women in pregnancy and birth and to improve the quality of care for mothers and children."

USAID's Marshall recalled her long-standing admiration for the work of author Helen Varney to improve maternal and neonatal health, noting that the new book will help many students acquire the capacities needed to help deliver life while protecting the life of mother and child.

Silvina Malvarez, regional advisor on nursing for PAHO, said "This book is aimed at helping the world give birth. In the year where we celebrate World Health Day dedicated to human resources in health, PALTEX prides itself and joins in the celebration of this text, and commits to make it available in every corner of the hemisphere that needs it".

PALTEX, the Expanded Textbook and Instructional Materials Program, is a joint technical program of PAHO and the Pan American Health and Education Foundation (PAHEF), a US nonprofit organization that closely cooperates with PAHO in several activities. In the last 30 years, the program has provided nearly 4 million medical and health science books and basic diagnostic instruments to students and health workers at over 600 institutions in 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries, at prices that represent a real incentive for students and health workers to use them.

Links of interest

• OMS Midwifery page
• Report World's Mothers 2006 by Save the Children
• OMS multimedia: Great Expectations