Improving Maternal health - Research Paper Example

Improving Maternal health Maternal health refers to the health related to a mother during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum period. It also concerns child health during birth. It encompasses prenatal and postnatal care dimensions to alleviate maternal morbidity and mortality. Prenatal care refers to the services given to a pregnant woman before birth to ensure that she has a healthy pregnancy. Postnatal care is provided immediately after the lady gives birth all through the past post-partum period. It is aimed at providing the right mother services to accelerate proper healing after birth. Despite maternal health concern being in the millennium development goals, the condition is still wanting. Maternal has for been a leading cause of death for many women and children. Efforts have been made to handle the situation with political aid. According to world health organization report of 2012, it has led to the global reduction of maternal health by 47% since 1990 to 2012. However, approximately 800 women die daily from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. In most underserved and marginalized communities are unable to access the information, resources, and services leading to prevailing of poor maternal health. Filippi demonstrated the health condition in developing countries to be poor compared to the developed countries (361). The factors that drive communities to high mortality rates despite the measure put to control are variety. Poverty, lack of knowledge, cultural ties, few skilled attendants and distance to hospitals are contributing factors to mortality deaths. There is a need to look into the issue deaths related pregnancies to safeguard the lives the mother and the child. WHO report of 2013 suggested an estimation of 289,000 women died during delivery. According to Bergsja, the situation in developing countries is 97 times worse than in developing countries. Antenatal care would reduce maternal mortality (35-54). The majority of deaths are reported to occur during and immediately following birth. WHO “Maternal Mortality” report shows that excessive bleeding causes 25%, 15% due to infections, 12% for the seizure disorder and 8% are due to obstructed labor. Other causes of death during pregnancy include unsafe abortions that account for 13% of the total deaths. The situation is so alarming in the society and needs further actions to reduce the deaths globally. The issue of death is extended to the postpartum period. McIntyre, James; Gray and Glenda claims HIV-infected mothers who breastfeed their children increase the risk of death to the child. It highly witnessed in African countries and most children end up in poor health and may eventually die (218-221). They should create awareness to all people including the marginalized societies. Knowledge of the existing services to counteract the situation is what majority of the lack. If they create awareness, they will help individuals identify and acknowledge the maternal problem that exists among them, be able to think of a solution and take action. The marginalized areas are most affected due to lack of access to information. The major role will be to make the information available to everyone. They should make societies understand the relevance of using the maternal health services and the dangers that arise due to ignorance and failure to utilize the opportunity. The awareness creation will be suitable even for Traditional Birth Attendants. They need to understand how to offer the right services to their clients. Bearing in mind that the areas most affected are the disadvantaged with minimal resources hence there is a need to make them see how they can use the available resources to manage the condition. They will address all the issues concerning maternal health begging from family planning, pregnancy, prenatal care and postnatal care and postpartum. They ought to make the issues of the marginalized communities known to the political sphere and lobby for affirmative action. It is quite unfortunate that this question can be avoidable since facilities to manage the situation are there, but individuals do not use the due to lack of knowledge about their existence. However, some of these treatments and lifesaving solutions are tragically out of reach of many vulnerable mothers thus need for creating awareness of alternatives. The claim is much feasible and applicable in all countries to improve maternal health. The program is less expensive to carry out. Costs will be incurred in training the workers and their salaries. They can start by using volunteers to make it less costly. In this case, only motivation expense will be incurred to keep the volunteers spirit high. Transport allowance may be given to the volunteers especially those moving into local areas. The cost will be manageable especially if there are available financing agents and donors to aid in the movement. The expenses are worthy compared to the expected outcome. Other costs may be incurred when training the communities on the issue and mitigations to handle it. Community training cost includes the training materials and other miscellaneous expenses. When solving the issue, there is a need to consider the barriers that may exist. Political hurdles need to be jumped to avoid low productivity of the program. In many nations, politicians embrace inequalities in terms of gender and even locations. The inequalities worsen the health status of the vulnerable group. For example, discriminating a girl child in education denies her the chance to get health knowledge taught in classes. Others discourage women from attending public forums making them more vulnerable. Politicians have boundaries enmity. It needs to be overlooked to promote health in diverse communities. Political instabilities also need not bother the agents. They have to train the people of all sexes, gender and avoid bias in terms of race, color or ethnicity. Creating awareness will have a significant impact on improving maternal health. It is because it is less expensive and outcome expected is high. It is easy to understand and apply. The claim doesn’t need many people in the campaign. Two people can be taken to serve in award thus decreasing the cost. It is so practical since there is no much technological skills are needed. Awareness campaigns empower people to take action and save the situation thus it will be adapted and people will respond positively to it. It will be readily useful hence applicable since it is evident that many cases of maternal complications are due to lack of information concerning health mitigations. In the movements, it will involve professionals with adequate skills and knowledge. They will in turn train the traditional caregivers in the developmental exempted areas on how to enhance maternal health in the performance of their duty. It will, therefore, be good to carry out the activity for it has proved to be workable in various aspects to protect the lives of mother and children. If they complete awareness creation campaigns, the people will be empowered. They will be able to think on reality issue affecting them. They will be able to take action to deal with it and handle their health status. Poverty is vital cause of mortality deaths. Izugbara, Chimaraoke; Ngilangwa and David show the relationship between women, poverty, and the maternal outcomes. It is a major contributing factor to the pregnancy complications (33). Through the campaigns, individuals will acquire information on income generating activities to alleviate the poverty calamity among them. It will in turn make them capable of going to health centers to get best maternal services. It will reduce the cases of death and pregnancy complications. They should empower people for it is like in the cities where people are already enabled and have stable financial grounds have access to proper services. The little incomes can afford maternal care services. They should empower them since it is an example of encouraging them to seek appropriate services to improve healthy pregnancy and delivery. In carrying out awareness, the traditional birth attendants will get skills on how to perform their services more skillful. They will be able to manage their clients’ situation much careful giving them the right advice and treatment (Sibley et al., 3). They should train the traditional birth attendant because it the same as nurses in the hospital also get extra training in their performance. Coaching them is important while creating awareness because they are an example of nurses in the health centers. Knowledge creation will make people identify potential services to enhance their health condition. They will be aware of the services and facilities that are available for better treatments. They should also make them aware mainly local people who do not know and lack prenatal care. Alexander et al., suggests that apart from maternal death prenatal care improves the health of the child (103-120). They need to be like the elites who know about it. Making them aware of the facilities is an example of information dissemination that is required to promote maternal health. However, there are some claims that do not support the creation of awareness. It is said that there are more efficient ways to improve the maternal health. Knowledge creation is said not to perform to capacity in correcting the situation. It is argued that it only creates ideas to people; hence it doesn’t play an active role in mitigating the problem. The argument discourages the community from attending to planned meetings. It is also claimed that the process of awareness creation meets a few of its objectives hence it is not efficient to use alone. Fortunately, records have documented the importance of knowledge creating awareness. It is a useful tool for improving maternal health, especially in community-based setup. It has contributed to the formation of community-based delivery of maternal services. Ensor says that to overcome the barriers to a healthy condition we can modify the available resources (69-79). The community workers on creating awareness are efficient in that they understand the presence of traditional birth attendants and acknowledge their efforts. They address the issues that want to help them boost their performance. Also, they promote sustainable development in attaining the Millennium development goal of improving maternal health. Creating awareness is a way of minimizing complications related to pregnancy and delivery. Many deaths among women have been reported to be due to inadequate maternal care. Both women and children have died as a result of the poor state of maternal health in both developed and developing countries. However the developing countries and the marginalized locations are highly affected compared to developed countries. Poverty, lack of knowledge and fewer health attendants in the society are the leading contribution to poor maternal health. Awareness creation will transform the state of communities into a sustainable improved maternal health. Works Cited Alexander, Greg; Korenbrot, C.C, "The Role of Prenatal Care in Preventing Low Birth Weight".The Future of Children. Low Birth Weight(Spring 1995). 5 (1): 103–120. Bergsjø, Per.” What is the evidence for the role of antenatal care strategies in the reduction of maternal mortality and morbidity? In Safe motherhood strategies:”,(2001) Pgs 35-54. Antwerp: ITG Press. Ensor T, Cooper S: Overcoming barriers to health service access: influencing the demand side.Health Policy Plan, (2004).19:69-79. Filippi, Veronique et al. "Maternal health in poor countries: the broader context and a call for action". The Lancet (28 October 2006).368: 1535–1541 Hollander, D. "Most Infant HIV Infection from Breast Milk Occurs within Six Weeks of Birth". International Family Planning Perspectives (September 2000). 26 (3): 141 Izugbara, Chimaraoke; Ngilangwa, David (2010). "Women, poverty and adverse maternal outcomes in Nairobi, Kenya". BMC Women's Health 10 (33).doi:10.1186/1472-6874-10-3"Maternal Deaths Decline Sharply Across the Globe". New York Times. 13 April 2010. McIntyre, James; Gray, Glenda. "What Can We Do to Reduce Mother to Child Transmission of HIV?".BritishMedical Journal (26 January 2002)324 (7331):218–221.doi:10.1136/bmj.324.7331.218 Sibley, L.M., et al..“Traditional birth attendant training for improving health behaviours and pregnancy outcomes.”(2007)Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2007: 3. Read More