The First Lady was speaking in Lilongwe when she opened a two-day Lugna Africa Midwives Research Network - LAMRN conference calling for the sustainability of the efforts made to improve the health welfare of women that has been registered for the past two years. .
Professor Gertrude Mutharika said as a mother, she is naturally concerned with the plight of mothers and wants the challenges they face to be addressed once and for all.
The First Lady commended Malawi for managing to attain Millennium Development goal number 4 which was to reduce death of children under 5 by two-thirds.
She however said it was sad to note that women in Africa, including Malawi continue to face education challenges and low levels of economic empowerment that negatively impact on maternal health status and lead to pregnancy related cases.
“In many countries across Africa, women face a lot of challenges that impact negatively on them; I call upon all of us to double our efforts in addressing these challenges and harnessing the gains currently being made,” explained Professor Gertrude Mutharika.
Professor Tina Lavender of Lugna Africa Midwife Research Mentor said efforts being made by the network in Sub - Saharan Africa is having a huge impact especially on championing policy changes in the reproductive and maternal health services among other areas calling on nurses and midwives to be in the forefront of doing research in order to improve health care in the country.
“The Malawian team has already made a huge contribution to the network, joining other countries in developing the research capacity of midwives, supporting evidence based practice and delivering high quality research projects for the benefit of women and babies,” said Professor Lavender.
The Lugna Africa Midwives Research Network (LAMRN) was formed with the aim of sharing ideas and the conference attracted members from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and host Malawi.