Following the directives of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Tanzanian conjoined twins Lightness and Loveliness arrived today at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.
Accompanied by their parents, the twins were transferred to King Abdullah Specialist Children’s Hospital for medical evaluation and to determine the possibility of separation surgery.
King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief) Supervisor General and head of the medical team Dr. Abdullah Al Rabeeah emphasized the Kingdom’s commitment to humanitarian values.
He expressed gratitude to the Saudi leadership for their ongoing support of the Saudi Conjoined Twins Program and global humanitarian efforts, highlighting the program’s excellence and the Kingdom’s prominent international standing in the medical sector.
The twins’ parents expressed heartfelt appreciation for the warm reception and generous hospitality extended by the government and people of Saudi Arabia, as well as for the prompt response to their children’s needs.
— SPA

A global shortage of nearly a million midwives is leaving pregnant women without the basic care needed to prevent harm, including the deaths of mothers and babies, according to new research.

Almost half the shortage was in Africa, where nine in 10 women lived in a country without enough midwives, the researchers said.

Anna af Ugglas, chief executive of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) and one of the study’s authors, said: “Nearly 1 million missing midwives means health systems are stretched beyond capacity, midwives are overworked and underpaid, and care becomes rushed and fragmented.

“Intervention rates rise, and women are more likely to experience poor-quality care or mistreatment,” she said. “This is not only a workforce issue, it is a quality and safety issue for women and babies.”

For all women to receive safe, good-quality care before, during and after pregnancy, an additional 980,000 midwives would be needed across 181 countries, the study found.

According to previous research, universal access to midwife-delivered care could prevent two-thirds of maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths, saving 4.3 million lives annually by 2035.

The ICM said the issue was not only a lack of training places for midwives, but also a failure in many countries to employ trained midwives where they were needed and to retain those who were working in health services.

Prof Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, ICM’s chief midwife and another of the report’s authors, said: “In many settings, midwives are educated but not absorbed into the workforce or not enabled to practise fully, compounding this already serious and universal shortage of midwives, and still leaving women without access to the care that midwives are trained to provide.”

More than 90% of the global midwife shortage was in low- and middle-income countries.

Africa has only 40% of the midwives it needs, the eastern Mediterranean only 31%, and the Americas just 15%, researchers found. Shortfalls were much smaller, although still present, in other regions including south-east Asia and Europe.

The study, published in the journal Women and Birth, estimated the number of midwives who would be needed to carry out a list of basic midwifery tasks for all eligible women and babies in 181 countries. The tasks included counselling on contraception, antenatal care and screening, and care during childbirth.

It then compared that total with current workforce numbers. The researchers noted some uncertainty because of the lack of adequate data.

Although midwife numbers were increasing, the gap between what was needed and the available workforce looked likely to “persist well into the next decade”, the researchers said – beyond the 2030 deadline set by global sustainable development goals to reduce maternal mortality and end preventable deaths of newborns and under-fives.

The ICM called on governments to take urgent action to strengthen midwifery workforces in their countries, calling for signatures on a global petition urging investment in the profession.

“When midwifery is a respected and well-supported profession, more women are motivated to train and stay in the workforce,” said af Ugglas. “That is how countries improve health outcomes and build stronger, more sustainable health systems.”

The Guardian

Tourists to Japan hit a record 42.7 million in 2025, exceeding 40 million for the first time, Japan’s Tourism Minister, Yasushi Kaneko, told a press conference.

Total spending by inbound tourists reached 9.5 trillion yen ($60 billion) over the year, also ‌a record high.

WAM