There are more than 50,000 accredited midwives in Taiwan, but they deliver less than 0.05 percent of the babies born each year, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
Taiwan Midwives Association director-general Gao Mei-ling (高美玲) said midwifery has virtually vanished since midwife education programs were suspended in 1991 when the number of physicians rose high enough for hospitals to stop staffing midwives in their obstetrics and gynecology departments.
Gao made the remarks at a conference on diversity in birthing practices and delivery environments friendly to mothers and babies held by the association last weekend.
Association executive director Kuo Su-chen (郭素貞) said that since now, the number of obstetricians is falling and consciousness about women’s issues is rising, more expectant mothers are opting for natural delivery methods that minimize medical intervention.
Many developed countries are seeing a rise in the number of newborns delivered by certified midwives, Kuo said.
She said that labor is a natural process and that the nation’s Midwifery Act (助產人員法) authorizes midwives to deliver babies, administer prenatal and postnatal checks, and dispense advice to pregnant women and new mothers.
In a lot of European countries, midwifery-led pregnancy, birth and postpartum care for low-risk pregnancies is becoming more common, Kuo said.
Deputy Minister of Health Lin Tzou-yien (林奏延) said that less than 0.05 percent of babies born nationwide between 2008 and 2012 were delivered by midwives, indicating that obstetricians are still the mainstay in the field.
There are 53,928 certified midwives in the nation, 90 percent of whom are also accredited nurses, Lin said.
He added that the Executive Yuan has just approved a one-year pilot project during which hospitals will test out a co-care system involving obstetricians and midwives.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the