Reproductive Health and the Experience of Womens Health in Developing Countries - Essay Example

Essay Questions Name: Date: Essay Questions 1.0 Introduction Reproductive health involves all interventions that are aimed at maintaining the reproductive system in a healthy state in such a manner that enhances fertility and gives a woman control over all issues related to her reproduction (United Nations Population Fund 2015, p.1). As such reproductive health focuses on such issues such as sexually transmitted infections, birth control, infertility and fertility amongst others. It is also involves issues such as maternal and infant health care. Reproductive health has a great influence on the ability of a mother to carry a pregnancy successful to term and also give birth to a healthy infant. Reproductive health has an important influence on socio-economic factors of a country. It influences such metrics as population and demographics. As such, various countries around the world are involved in many programs aimed at ensuring that their populations get access to reproductive health services. Access to reproductive health in developing countries is normally a big challenge to women. The government has often been accused of using coercion to force women to take up reproductive health programs. The following paper gives an insightful discussion of the changing global discourses in terms of reproductive health and the experience of women’s health in developing countries. 2. Reproductive Health Safe and healthy motherhood starts prior to conception. Owing to the importance of safe motherhood on general health of a country’s demographics in addition to the need for controlled and healthy population for the purpose social - economic health, the importance of reproductive health cannot be downplayed. As pointed out earlier, reproductive health involves all interventions prior to conception, during pregnancy and after delivery that are aimed at maintaining a healthy reproductive system. Reproductive health focuses on ensuring that mothers have a healthy lifestyle, proper nutrition, prevention of complications and treatment of complications that crop up during and faster pregnancy. As such, reproductive health leads to the delivery of a healthy infant after a full term pregnancy in addition to a healthy post delivery period. Reproductive health aims at minimizing the rate of unwanted pregnancies and increasing the chances of desired / wanted pregnancies. Owing to the importance of reproductive health on a population, authorities normally design programs aimed at increasing the number of people accessing reproductive health since it translates to a healthy population. Access and acceptance of reproductive health practices is relatively low in developing countries as compared to middle economies and developed countries. In the wake of a need for a more healthy population, national and international authorities are continuously involved in developing policies and programs aimed at increasing the number of people accessing reproductive health practices. On this point, it is worth giving an insight into some of case studies involving reproductive health around the world. The one child policy in China was a legal / social move aimed at regulating the country’s population that was growing at an alarming rate. With eminent threats to the country’s capacity to support the 1 billion plus people, the government saw it fit to have a legal intervention on the country’s reproductive health. Due to this; legal directive, people are forced to seek for reproductive health intervention that ensure that they get only one child. This has been a source of a gender imbalance in the country as people prefer to give birth to boys as opposed to girls. This has collectively led to termination of pregnancies once parents realize that they are carrying female child pregnancies. In Africa and other developing countries, activisms against family planning practices that are considered foreign have shaped the debate surrounding reproductive health. The fear of foreign dominance and a diminishing population have been cited as key factors fueling the debate in surrounding reproductive health in the developing countries. With globalization and increased intervention of global institutions such as the United Nations, national authorities in developing countries have developed reproductive health interventions that are at times seen as forced measures on the population that considers modern reproductive health as a wrong practice. There have been debates about the existence of family planning medical interventions been administered alongside other drugs / vaccines without the knowledge and consent of the recipients. The politics surrounding this issue have been taken a notch higher with the involvement of religious groups in the debate. On this point, it is important to note that the Catholic Church has been very vocal in campaigning against family planning (Fleishman 2000, p.277 ). According to the church, man was created to fill the earth thus man made interventions should not be used to deter this from happening. The following sections will discuss the changing discourses with respect to reproductive health in the globe. It will use various case study examples to illustrate the changing perceptions/ perspectives with respect to reproductive health developments in developing countries. 3.0 Woman Centered Approach in Reproductive Health Ideally, reproductive health should be practiced by both men and women. However, men tend to take a lower stand when it comes to reproductive health. It is worth highlighting that women tend to play a bigger role in reproduction as opposed to men in the sense that their bodies must be well prepared to handle pregnancy to full term, support fetal development and deliver safely in addition to readjustment in preparation for next reproduction cycle. On the other hand, men are mainly involved in conception; thus explain the emphasis on the need for healthy lifestyles that enhance chances of healthy sperms. However, the significance of men in supporting women carry their pregnancies to full term in addition to providing post delivery support cannot be downplayed. A move towards a more woman centered approach to reproductive health has been identified as an appropriate trend towards enhancing successful reproductive health around the world. On this point, it is worth pointing out that since women have a greater responsibility in reproduction; a woman centered approach to reproduction health stands a higher chance of success as compared to other approaches (Moos, Dunlop, Jack, Nelson, Coonrod, Long & Gardiner 2000, p .283). Taking a look at developing countries; it can be acknowledged that women have been disadvantaged over time thus explaining their lower socio, economic and political status as compared to men. As such; the success of reproductive health in developing countries has suffered since the direction taken by women to access reproductive health has often been dictated by men. Women centered approaches are merely aimed at increasing a woman’s bargaining power in choosing the reproductive health approach to follow and when to follow it. Such approaches are aimed at ensuring that women have more power to make decisions pertaining reproductive health; thus enhancing the chances of successful reproductive health owing to the incorporation of women in decision making processes. 4.0 Shifting Discourses 4.1 Socio-economic changes As pointed out earlier, socio-economic states have a significant influence on health and other issues related to human life. According to Mohindra, Haddad and Narayana (2006, p. 1020), the caste system in India has a high influence on the health status of women in the country. In their research study, the authors found out that although India enjoys an egalitarian state, the caste system still seems to have a high significance on the health of women across the country. Women hailing from lower castes tend to have poor health as compared to their counterparts from higher castes. According to Filippi V. et al (2006, p. 368), pregnant women are economically and socially vulnerable to the expenses associated with pregnancy. On this point, it is worth highlighting that women from low socio economic status are more vulnerable to these expenses as compared to women from well up socio economic backgrounds. As such; it is worth noting that effective reproductive health interventions would be those that tend associated effects on the socio economic state of women as opposed to mere interventions on health. According to Mohindra, Haddad and Narayana, interventions that seek to address the socio economic disparities presents a more amicable solution to increasing the number of people accessing and affording quality reproductive health services (Mohindra, Haddad and Narayana 2006, p. 1025). 4.2 Inclusion of Men in Reproductive Health The inclusion of men in reproductive health programs is another discourse that is slowly being integrated into reproductive health interceptions globally. As pointed out earlier, gender stereotyping has often placed responsibility about reproduction related issues on women. As such; men often take the back seat when discussions about reproductive health come up. The level of involvement of men in reproductive health issues in developing countries is way much lower as compared to developed countries. Out of ignorance, men in developing countries usually tend to make assumptions about reproduction that misinformed; leading to the making of inappropriate decisions. On this point, it is worth giving an insight into the perception of women and men fertility in developing countries. Masculinity perspectives tend to assume that men are always potent and that bareness in marriage unions is a problem related to women only (Ouzgane & Morrell 2005, p, 34). As a result of this men normally subject their women to stressful lives as societies stigmatize women on the basis of their inability to conceive (Dyer, Abrahams, Hoffman & van der Spuy 2002, p. 1667). This is specifically so in societies that children are highly valued and the worth of a man is normally evaluated with respect to his/ her ability to sire children. However, appropriate reproductive health interventions can be used to identify the causes of failed conception and provide amicable solutions to the problems. For this reason amongst others; the involvement of men in reproductive health interventions has been cited as an important step towards enhancing the access to reproductive health services in developing countries (Dudgeon & Inhorn 2004, p. 1381). 4.3 Indirect Approaches (State Coercion) National authorities in developing countries have also been reported to use indirect approaches to provide reproduction health services to their population (Hardon 2005, p.614). In the wake of increased need for a need for reproductive health services in their countries, national authorities have integrated contraceptive and other reproductive health aligned services that are aligned to other health intervention such as vaccines. In the context of such interventions the recipients of the services are given indirect reproductive health interventions without their consent. Therefore; the recipients perceive that they are coerced to receive forced reproductive health interventions. According to Hardon (2005, p. 616), state coercion has resulted to the development of resistance of the general population against such government led programs. In what is seen as a move to force women to take the pill, governments seem to sweeten the deal as they strive to get more women to engage in family planning (Culp–Ressler, T., 2014, p.1). 4.4 Gender Power in Sex There has also been changing discourses with regard to empowering women sexuality. On this point; it is worth highlighting that the woman has traditionally been forced to maintain a low profile with regard to expressing their sexual desires. Social structures such as religion and cultural norms have for a long time been used to suppress women’s sexual desires in various societies around the world. According to (Van Eerdewijk 2009, p. 7) the society is predominated by men who tend to regulate women’s actions pertaining sexuality. Giving more power to women with regard to sexual practices would tend to empower them to engage in solutions that best fit their reproductive health demands. Women sexuality empowerment also changes the perspectives of women on men infidelity. According to (Hirsch et. Al 2002, p. 1227) Mexican women tended to be at home with cheating husbands in the past. Bogus explanations of the reason as to why the men cheat seemed to make sense then but this is slowly shifting with more women empowerment in sex related matters. Hirsch et al point out that the prevalence of HIV / AIDs and other sexually transmitted diseases has been fueled by such sexual power disparities. According to Zakarriya, female activism in Egypt has been a source of the much needed sexual power to women in the country where sexual relations are strictly governed by religion and culture (Zakarriya 2014, p. 49). From the above discussion, it can be acknowledged that there is a need to break the stalemate regarding sexual interactions between men and women. There is a need to refocus human perception to what was formerly seen as a man prey woman approach in combating hindrances to effective reproductive health. With the woman been considered as an equal partner in a sexual relation; there is a higher possibility of achieving successful reproductive health in developing countries. 4.5 The Female Condom As pointed out above, moves that bring power to women to take course of sexual relations have a significant influence on enhancing successful reproductive health in developing countries. One of such women centered approaches that has in the recent past been viewed a move of bringing power to the woman to take course of reproductive and sexual health is the female condom. As at now, the female condom is the best innovation or development that has been developed to make the woman take charge of preventing unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (Hoffman, Mantell, Exner & Stein 2004, p. 123). According to Kaler, the female condom is a form of woman empowerment (Kaler 2001, p. 784). Although its use is disappointed in some regions around the world; it has had a significant influence on how women perceive their role in reproductive health during intimacy. Its use by sex commercial workers and other high sexually active women is an illustration of the changing shifts towards women centered reproductive health. 5.0 Conclusion In conclusion, this paper has given a deep insight into reproductive health and changing discourses in developing countries. It was argued that reproductive health focuses on all interventions before, during and after pregnancy that are aimed at ensuring that a woman’s and child’s health status is maintained at the highest levels possible. In an implicit way, reproductive health was seen to ensure that there are minimal unwanted pregnancies and maximum wanted pregnancies with full observation of all health issues related to sexuality and reproduction. The paper argued that access to reproductive health in developing countries is way much lower as compared to its state in developed countries. The essay identified that the national authorities are sometimes seen to coerce people to use reproductive health interventions especially in family planning. Discussing changing discourses in reproductive health in developing countries, the paper covered socio economic empowerment of women, inclusion of men in reproductive health agenda, the female condom, indirect interventions by authorities and gender power in sex relations. From the paper, it can be acknowledged that even though reproductive health still lags behind in developing countries; socio-economic interventions coupled with cultural changes are likely to lead to more successful reproductive health access. References Culp –Ressler, T., 2014. Ricki Lake And The Rise Of The Birth Control Truthers, Retrieved on 21st September from http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/03/04/3344011/birth-control-ricki-lake/ Dudgeon, M., & Inhorn, M., 2004. Men’s Influnces on Women’s Reproductive Health : Medical Anthropological Perspectives, Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 59, No. 1; pp. 1379 - 1395 Dyer, J., Abrahams, N., Hoffman, M., & van der Spuy, M. 2002. 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