More than 90 percent of Vietnamese midwives have received intermediate-level training, while 7 percent meet the minimum standards of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), the Ministry of Health and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) reported.

Vietnam has 24,000 primary-level nurses who are trained to help women give birth to babies.

The amount of midwives nationwide caters for 83 percent of the public demand.

According to statistics from the UNFPA, as many as 289,000 mothers and some 3 million newborns died in 2013 alone, mostly in 73 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America, including Vietnam.-VNA