With Critical Momentum, A Global Movement

On May 28, 2025 — the International Day of Action for Women’s Health — the PUSH Campaign brought together global changemakers for a powerful virtual event that placed midwives at the heart of the conversation on women’s health.  

Missed it? Watch it here

Anchored by new evidence from the World Economic Forum revealing that closing the women’s health gap could benefit 3.9 billion women and boost the global economy by $1 trillion annually by 2040, the event spotlighted an essential yet often overlooked solution: midwives.

Here’s what we know:

1. Midwives can deliver up to 90% of essential sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, and adolescent health interventions — particularly in under-resourced settings.  

2. Woman-centred care saves lives and improves health outcomes by fostering respect, dignity, empowerment, and consensual informed decision making, yet women are less likely than men to receive person-centred care.

3. Woman-centred care is not just a philosophy; it is a proven strategy to save lives, improve outcomes, and uphold dignity. Midwives are trained to embody this care model, yet they are frequently missing from the policy tables, health investments, and workforce strategies that shape the future of healthcare.

With over 20 speakers from across sectors, the event drew together donors, advocates, grassroots organizers, and global health leaders for an energizing hour of dialogue, solidarity, and commitment.

The message was clear: if we want to close the gap in women’s health, we must scale up, invest in, and champion midwives.

On International Women’s Day (8 March 2025), PUSH launched the second phase of its campaign with a renewed focus on centring women and championing midwives as the key solution. On 5^th May 2025, the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) held a powerful event commemorating the International Day of the Midwife, celebrating with thousands of midwives around the world, highlighting their critical role in crises and health systems. This #IDM2025 event included 2 expert panels representing leaders and partners from all around the world representing all regions, spotlighted the leadership of six frontline midwives working in crisis settings, highlighted the work of five ICM member associations, learned from global experts and watched a series of different documentaries about the work midwives do during crisis.  Building on this momentum, the PUSH campaign brought together champions, allies, and partners to PUSH for rights, for women, and for midwives in honour of the International Day of Action for Women’s Health on 28 May 2025.  

The PUSH for Women’s Health event opened with remarks from ICM’s Chief Midwife, setting the tone for collective action. This was followed by a round of reflections from global experts around the role of midwives in addressing women’s health, a pledge drive celebrating women-centred care champions and their commitments to the PUSH campaign, and an open invitation to join the movement and with resources on how to engage!  

Let's recap a few highlights:

Round of Reflections:

Given the powerful and highly successful IDM celebration, we wanted to replay and highlight some of our favorite reflections around the role that midwives play in providing women-centred care in crisis. We also heard from our colleagues around combatting the stigma around women’s health, how midwives play a role in addressing the women’s health gap and why need to invest in midwives as a key solution.

• Pascale Allotey, midwife and Director of the Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health at the World Health Organization reflected on the newly launched maternal mortality estimates and the role that midwives play in addressing what many in our field consider as one of the biggest failures in women’s health.  

• Nina Soder, midwife from Medecins Sans Frontiers, challenged the limited and stereotypical perception that midwives only delivering babies and women’s health only being focused on reproductive functions. She shared her first-hand experience of providing woman-centred care to survivors of sexual violence on the frontlines of one of the biggest humanitarian crises in the Mediterrenenan.    

• Faysal El Kak, former director of FIGO and the Director of AUB’s Women Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) Program highlighted the crucial role of doctors and obstetricians in advocating for midwives and the critical inter-professional partnership needed to deliver women-centred care. He also highlighted the need to fight the stigma associated with almost every aspect of women’s health—whether its menstruation or menopause, fertility, sexual dysfunction, breast and cervical cancers.

• Kathleen Sherwin, Plan International’s Chief Strategy Officer and a champion of the World Economic Forum’s Global women’s Health Alliance for Women’s Health, reflected about what is being done at the global macro-economic level to close the women’s health gap and how midwives need to be part of the solution.  

• Natalia Kanem, Executive Director of UNFPA, closed this round of expert reflections sharing about the newly launched Midwifery Accelerator and the importance of investing in the midwifery workforce amidst global shortages and worsening health outcomes and inequalities.

Pledge Drive: Meet the Woman-Centred Care Champions

Next we visited 10 countries and heard from Woman-Centred Care Champions who signed the PUSH pledge and submitted statements of support answering: Why they PUSH for midwives as a key for women’s health?

These champions represent different levels and sectors ranging grassroots organizations, UN partners, doctors, nurses, midwives, doulas, activists, and researchers, women’s health and rights movements, national, regional, and global non-governmental organizations and private sector, including the Fem-Tech industry. We are proud to see the movement grow beyond borders and sectors. They included:

• Ana Velez, Women in Global Health, Switzerland  

• Aroua Chahbi, UNFPA Arab Regional Midwifery Advisory Group, Tunisia  

• Dr Amanullah Khan, White Ribbon Alliance, Pakistan  

• Paulina Ospina, Direct Relief, USA  

• Jihan Salad, AlignMNH, Jordan/the Netherlands 

• Dr Joia Crear Perry, National Birth Equity Collaborative, USA  

• Ayşegül Boz Baltacı, European Doula Network, Turkey  

• Humphrey Beja, National Midwives Association, Uganda  

• Franka Cadee, Maternity Foundation, Denmark  

• Dudu Dlamini, Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce, South Africa  

• Casey Selzer, Oula Health, USA

Follow us and stay tuned to our social media to catch their pledges!

Call to Action: Join the Movement

ICM’s Communications Lead, Ana Gutierrez, presented the steps to join the campaign, the four tiers of engagement, and the newly launched digital assets sent to all who sign the PUSH Pledge!  

1. Step 1: Sign the PUSH Pledge  

2. Step 2: What type of WCC are you?  
   Whether you're sharing your story, amplifying our message, or challenging the status quo, your actions will cause a ripple effect. Check out which of the 4 types of Champion you want to become? There’s room for everyone in the movement!  

3. Step 3: Share your story and change the narrative
   Your story matters. By sharing your experience, you help shift the narrative, raise awareness, and bring others into the PUSH Campaign. Whether you’re a midwife, student, activist, researcher, or someone who’s received woman-centred care—or wished they had—we want to hear from you. Every story helps grow the movement and shows the world why woman-centred care—and the midwives who provide it—are essential.

4. Step 4: Amplify and spread the movement on social media and through our editable templates.  

Let’s take action for women’s health and let’s PUSH for rights. PUSH for women. PUSH for midwives.