At a glance

■ 1,264 trained midwives to be deployed in 86 high-delivery hospitals

■ Rs 2.5 lakh per nurse for 18-month training

■ Focus on reducing state’s 56.12% C-section rate

■ Holistic maternity care from prenatal to postnatal stages

Metro India News | amaravati

Trained midwives will soon be appointed in 86 government hospitals across Andhra Pradesh that conduct between 600 and 6,000 deliveries annually. As part of a focused maternal health initiative, 1,264 midwives will be deployed to support expectant mothers, encourage natural births, and improve the overall quality of maternity care. Their duties—from outpatient consultations to postnatal care—will be guided by a detailed job chart designed to standardise and strengthen service delivery.

To address the high rate of Caesarean (C-section) births in the state, the Andhra Pradesh Medical and Health Department has launched this new initiative under the National Health Mission (NHM). Health Minister Satyakumar Yadav has approved the programme, which aims to reduce unnecessary surgical interventions by enhancing skilled support for natural deliveries.

Currently, most government hospital deliveries are overseen by staff nurses who often lack specialised training in obstetric care. This has been identified as a contributing factor to the growing number of C-section births. To overcome this, selected nurses will receive 18 months of in-depth training covering prenatal, delivery, and postnatal care. Midwives under the programme will provide comprehensive services including pregnancy counselling, labour support, breastfeeding education, nutrition guidance, and postnatal health monitoring. They will also help identify complications early and ensure timely referrals.

Each trainee midwife will receive a stipend, and the government estimates that the cost of training each nurse will be around Rs 2.5 lakh. The state also plans to scale the programme to rural and tribal regions, ensuring that every Primary Health Centre (PHC) conducting deliveries has at least one trained midwife. In 2024–25, Andhra Pradesh recorded a C-section rate of 56.12%, with 41.40% of such procedures occurring in government hospitals and 67.71% in private ones.