“Four seasoned midwives — with a combined century of experience in building strong societies by promoting the health and safety of mothers and their babies — delivered a compelling case last week at a congressional briefing for the United States to lead a movement to strengthen midwifery at home and around the world,” Vince Blaser, deputy director of the Frontline Health Workers Coalition, writes in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists” blog. “There is simply no reason that 48 million women should have to [give birth without the presence of a skilled birth attendant] — especially with the highly effective and cost-friendly intervention of trained and supported midwives ready and willing to deliver on the frontlines of health care, the panelists said,” Blaser notes, and discusses what Congress is doing “to harness this power of midwifery in developing countries and here at home” (6/25).