Child Development and Public Health

I chose Mental Health of family because it means a lot to me to learn about family structure and how it can change a child’s life. The article that caught my interest was Family Structure and Children’s Physical and Mental Health. This article talks about family structure and how it affects children upbringing. They talk about children that live with a single-mother, grandparent, foster parents, etc. I was raise by both a single-mother and grandparent. I believe I was healthy as we as loved by my family. They said children with both biological parents are in better health than children not living with their biological parents.  Well sometime it is all about the value the parent is promoting to the child. Children need love and support as well as guidance to direct them in the right direction. One thing that I agree with is that children from household with parents that educated are most likely to have better physical and mental health than children where the parents are unable to provide.

I was a little bit surprise to read about children taking care their of their parent  illness. This information will not impact my future as early childhood professional. However  if I was going  to work in Africa were I will be exposed to unusual experiences such as parents having trouble connecting with their child, or teaching children with multiple learning barriers, then  yes it will be a challenging career as a early childhood professional.

Article link: http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/26/2/549.full

 

South Africa's children caring for parents with Aids

Article link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jun/22/hiv-aids-child-carers-south-africa

Interviewing more than 7,000 people in some of the country's poorest townships, they are studying the mental health and education of a generation of South African children who are growing up caring for relatives with HIV and Aids.

The two-year study, involving 35 field staff, including local managers, interviewers and volunteers, is working to build a huge pool of data that will inform social policy not only for South Africa, but for other countries with high rates of Aids and HIV around the world.

Shockingly, so far, the research suggests children who live with Aids-sufferers have as much psychological distress as those who have been orphaned by Aids. "It's because of the stigma that comes with having HIV in the family," Cluver says. "Kids report being gossiped about, and teased, and having people scared to touch them."

The early findings show that about 40% of kids in Aids-sick homes are missing or have dropped out of school, compared to 22% in homes affected by other illnesses, and 5% in healthy homes. Almost a third of the young carers – sometimes as young as eight – report carrying out intimate care, such as washing sick people, helping them go to the toilet and cleaning their wounds.

"The kids aren't passive victims – they're kids just like all others, wanting to be Beyonce or Usher. They're so excited about the World Cup that when they chose pseudonyms for their stories to be reported in our research, half of them used football players' names," Cluver says. "They worry about the same things as first-world kids – one 13-year-old girl cried throughout her interview because kids at school were calling her 'baboon face'."

 

My Childbirth Story and Around The World

Lanika and Sophia My child birth experience was watching my niece and my god-daughter being born. It was the happiest day ever. I remember this day as if it was yesterday. My cousin and I were laying down talking when she said I am going into labor. I remember my mother telling my cousin to go back to bed because it’s too early to have my beautify niece Lanika. Watching that baby coming out was amazing; at that moment I had all kind of emotional feelings running through my body. Now all I think of is having my own child. Ten years later my husband and I still don’t have any children as yet. I choose to talk about this experience because it was an experience I will never forget. I had the opportunity to be in the room with doctor and nurses where my cousin was giving birth to her first child. A birth of a child started by two people that love each other as they come together to create a person, and several years later that child is going to do the same thing as their parent and create a person on their own. Child birth changes the parents’ life forever. The impact childbirth has on child development is the changing process from child to adulthood.   Most childbirth story I come across is similar in every other countries as well as the United States. The story I chose is not the same as my experience, but learning about another countries is informative. The different between the stories I chose is that in the United States where we live as middle class citizens. My cousin gets to give birth in a private hospital. The minority women in Haiti do not have the some privilege during childbirth. In fact most of what I read from this article I already knew. Haiti is a poor country but if you have money you can live like a king. Although half the population is very poor, they still find a way to have healthy babies.

This is some information on Childbirth from another Country

Article Link: http://www.pih.org/issues/pages/womens-health

Family planning

Family planning is among the most effective tools for reducing maternal mortality. Women who receive education and contraceptive options are more likely to delay childbearing, have fewer children and reduce their risk for obstetrical complications. Nevertheless, 50 percent of all pregnancies worldwide are unplanned or unwanted, accounting for nearly 300,000 new pregnancies every day.

Women in poor communities too often lack access to family planning tools. Clinics are too far away, user fees are too high, and transportation costs are beyond their means. Making family planning available and affordable to the poor worldwide would save the lives of more than 100,000 women every year.

In Haiti, each of PIH’s clinics has a full-time nurse trained in sex education and reproductive health counseling. Staff in Haiti has been offering free condoms and contraception for over 15 years. In 2003, we began training and mobilizing community health workers who specifically promote family planning and women’s health. These ajans fanm – women's health agents in Haitian Creole – travel throughout the countryside, teaching people about sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and contraceptive methods. They also distribute condoms and oral contraceptives and refer pregnant women to clinics. This successful model is being replicated at PIH sites in Rwanda, Malawi and Lesotho.

Skilled obstetric care for pregnancy and childbirth

Each year 52 million births occur without help from a skilled attendant in developing countries, and 35 percent of pregnant women have no contact at all with health personnel before delivery. Yet potentially fatal complications occur in 15 percent of all births. Because of this, it is critical that women deliver in or very near facilities capable of providing basic emergency obstetrical and newborn care.

At PIH’s clinics in Haiti, high-quality obstetric care for pregnancy, childbirth and emergency complications is available to all pregnant women. Each of our 12 facilities has a fully-functioning women’s health clinic staffed by a professional midwife. These clinics are supported by 6 full-time obstetrician/gynecologists who work across our sites.

Staff works with matrons and traditional birth attendants to ensure that pregnant women receive the safest and most efficient obstetric care possible. At the women’s health clinic at Rwinkwavu Hospital, in rural Rwanda, specialized nursing staff are trained in prenatal counseling and delivery as well as family planning.

In June 2009, PIH Lesotho began training specialized community health workers to educate and accompany pregnant women to health centers, ensuring they receive care from skilled health professionals. In 2010, 70 percent of reported deliveries in PIH Lesotho’s Bobete Health Center catchment area occurred at the Health Center, a 350 percent increase in facility-based deliveries. Learn more about PIH Lesotho’s Maternal Mortality Reduction program.

Preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV

Ninety percent of the 2.5 million children living with HIV became infected during childbirth. So did the vast majority of more than 300,000 children who die of AIDS each year before reaching the age of five. Yet a simple and effective treatment for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) has been available since 1994.

In 1995, PIH began providing antiretroviral treatment for PMTCT to HIV-positive pregnant women in rural Haiti. Since the PMTCT program was introduced, the HIV infection rate of newborns born at PIH clinics has fallen to levels rivaling those in developed countries. This model for prevention has since been expanded to Rwanda, Malawi and Lesotho.