The history of midwifery in Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) is full of twists and turns. Nursing and midwifery education began in 1960. However with its development came an absence of a national policy on human resources for health. As such, various kinds of health personnel for nursing and midwifery began to exist: nurses, midwives, nurse-midwives and auxiliary nurse-midwives. This led to the destandardization of the nursing and midwifery education curricula. 

By the mid-1980s only two cohorts totalling 100 midwives were trained before the skills of midwifery as a unique profession had been dissolved and absorbed by a 2.5 year technical nurse training program. Though reliable data is limited, it was evident that Lao PDR continued to have the highest rates of maternal and newborn mortality in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Interest by the Lao PDR Government in the utilization of midwives to address these high rates began with the initiation of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Millennium Development Goals (MDG). However, with over two decades of the absence of midwifery education and knowledge there was now a lack of national technical expertise to develop the educational system.