Food Deserts in Nigeria - Essay Example

Poor Nutrition in Pregnancy in Africa By + Introduction Several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa usually have their pregnant women experiencing poor nutrition, along with adverse results due to food insecurity, poverty, sub-standard health facilities, recurrent communicable diseases and regular pregnancies. For instance, in Nigeria, pregnant women have a high occurrence of not only under-nutrition, but also over-nutrition, including lack of vital nutrients, such as iron, folate, as well as vitamin A and D. Consequently, these conditions bring about obstetric complications, including low birth weight, anaemia, hypertension, neural tube deficiencies, night-blindness, besides maternal and child death. Just like the rest of the world, most African countries suffer from poor nutrition, food poverty, and food deserts. In West Africa, Nigeria turns out to be one of the most affected countries, and such conditions mostly trickles down to pregnant women. While the role of proper nutrition and food security in pregnant women in African needs efficient management, it is also essential to apply concepts of food economics in the management of the outlined issues (Yamin & Norheim, 2014). This report will aim to analyse poor nutrition issues in pregnant women living in Africa, while relating to specific countries, as well as the influence these issues have on health promotion. Furthermore, the report will examine questions concerned with the control of prevalent diseases in pregnant women. A Case Study Report Related to a Human Health Stressor and the Role of Health Promotion in Reducing Poor Nutrition in Pregnant Women in Africa One of the main issues affecting Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of poor nutrition is the rise of migration patterns in recent years, especially to the Western world. Currently, among all African countries, Nigeria takes the lead in representing the continent, claiming the most predominant immigrant residents in a number of first world nations (Shrimpton, 2006). On the other hand, if at all there are any impacts of immigration on their nutritional status and the results of pregnancy of women in their native countries, many studies have not captured such data comprehensively. Thus, it is currently unidentified, to some extent, about the dietary insufficiencies as well as pregnancy complications not only in Nigeria, but also in the entire Sub-Saharan Africa. These discrepancies have led to unexploited opportunities focused on the most suitable antenatal care aimed towards the reversing the likely high risks in different groups of women during pregnancy. According to Shrimpton (2006), poor nutrition in pregnancy among Sub-Saharan women, with in-depth focus on Nigeria, leads to the most common nutrition-related problems as well as the succeeding obstetric outcomes. The perception of nutritional acculturation among immigrants in addition to the deplorable sanitary conditions in Nigeria worsens these conditions. Even though most pregnant women, along with their children are faced with numerous diseases that have continued to take thousands of lives annually, HIV/AIDS and malaria takes the lead as the most prevalent and severe health stressor. The female anopheles mosquito spreads the diseases through skin bites (Abdalla, 2014). Among the Nigerian population, the diseases has continued to thrive owing to poor sanitary conditions, the poor quality of health facilities in the country’s rural areas, as well as the continued ignorance of the government on the need to control diseases. The arrival of HIV/AIDS in Africa has become a stumbling block in the efforts of most governments to develop a structural agenda for improving child nutritional status (Kurtz, et al., 2006). Furthermore, the nourishing of new-borns and young offspring whose mothers ail from HIV/AIDS has become a major and constant challenge as well. This obstacle has been attributed mostly to insufficient or ineffective safe infant feeding preferences. However, the trend has changed over the last few years as health promotion has helped various African countries to manage the health stressors (Quinn & Kumar, 2014). Appropriate Methodologies and Interventions Needed to Improve Maternal and Child Nutrition Improving Maternal Nutritional Status during Adolescence Since maternal malnourishment carries intergenerational influences, it is important to address the issues affecting pregnant women’s nutrition in the early days of their pregnancy, and sometimes even before they conceive their first child. One of the most effective and special remedies is emphasizing on nutritional improvement of adolescent girls, who are at the brink of adulthood due to their reproductive roles (Linkages Project, 2001). These measures reflects the nutritional stresses that pregnancies place on adolescent girls because they are usually at high risks of pregnancy –related illnesses because they lack enough vital nutrients, such as iron, folate, vitamin A and D. Such deficiencies can lead to pregnancy-related complications, maternal mortality, in addition the delivery of infants with low-birth-weight. Managing the nutritional requirements of adolescents effectively get them ready for adulthood when they are ripe to undertake reproductive roles (Rush, 2000). Therefore, women need satisfactory nutritional wellbeing prior to and throughout their pregnancy in order to offer them a favourable intrauterine environment to develop a healthy foetus. Several Sub-Saharan African countries, such as Nigeria and Mali have introduced additional feeding programmes for improving the dietary status of school going children. However, it is ideal to make the nutritional difference for the kids prenatally (Obiora, et al., 2015). Thus, supplementary feeding programmes for lactating and pregnant should be implemented in African countries with extraordinary rates of maternal malnourishment. Antenatal and postnatal centres are responsible for a captive audience for such programmes. One of the surveillance strategies that Nigeria can use is the reporting of outbreaks of many diseases to the health ministries to ensure appropriate research to determine if the disease will transform to an epidemic. Secondly, in case of an outbreak of diseases in the neighbouring countries, Nigeria can also research to ensure that the disease does not spread into the country (Eme & Uche, 2014). Applying Exclusive Breast-Feeding The most appropriate way to combat child mortality rates, especially for children under five years is the application of exclusive breast-feeding. Even though there is extensive awareness of this knowledge, its application has not been felt since many countries are still facing high infant mortality rates. Therefore, it is important to have regular and intensive efforts to make sure that mother feed their new-borns exclusively with breast milk for 6 months. For instance, a random community-based intervention study in Ghana analysed the effects of lactation recommendations on exclusive breast-feeding rates among mothers. Significantly, the results demonstrated a one hundred percent rise in exclusive breast-feeding rates involving mothers receiving exclusive breast-feeding counselling and support matched against the control set of mothers, who received only health information without breast-feeding counselling and support (Mensah & Tomkins, 2003). Developing Management Plans to Implement Suitable Health Protection Measures that Act as a Platform for Future Maternal Health Improvement and Well-Being Programs There are several management strategies that can be used in Nigeria and other countries faced with communicable diseases, malnutrition, and food insecurity in pregnancy. One of the plans is the systematic and routine measurement of the type and quality of services offered by the health services of the country (Lawrence & McMichael, 2014). It will help ensure that the health systems of the country meet their health requirements. Secondly, family planning should be introduced into the health system and resources set aside to ensure that the program is implemented. Family planning will help families to cope with the issue of food security, as only the number of children who can be raised will be born. Moreover, it will help ensure that congestion and other housing problems associated with high population do not result in poor hygiene and the development of slums that are often associated with poor health and communicable diseases. Besides, the investment in research into the control of certain diseases that the Nigerian community is exposed to will help ensure that such conditions are dealt with in the future (Macleod & Gill, 2014). The research will help act as a surveillance mechanism that will alert the healthcare sector on the chances of development of epidemics or outbreak of diseases. Similarly, the research can help design appropriate methods that will be used to control the outbreak of the diseases when they occur. The involvement of the government in campaigns to educate the people on the importance of proper nutrition cannot be overlooked. The method will help ensure that people are more sensitive to the foods that they consume and the level of the balanced diet that they take. In turn, they will reduce the chances of suffering from malnutrition diseases or other illnesses that result from the lack of certain additives in the body (Sunday & Adejuwon, 2014). The formulation of a food security policy also plays a great role in the protection of the health of the mothers and ensuring that they survive through Sub-Saharan Africa, where drought it prevalent. Food security and poverty have continued to affect adversely the health of the population in Nigeria. The lack of a wide range of foods has resulted in deaths and also malnutrition. In this light, in an attempt to improve the wellbeing of the pregnant women and their children and guarantee them food security; hence, the government should formulate policies aimed at increasing the availability of foods to all in the country in the future. The food deserts in Nigeria suffer from drought and unsustainability of the people of such areas due to the unreliability of rain hence unavailability of food (Obiara & Ezugwu, 2015). Due to the food crisis in such areas, women, children, and animals often die and thus there is a need for the government to introduce irrigation programs in such areas to help cope with the problem. Irrigation will help ensure food security for the people in the food deserts; ultimately, the deaths will be minimized. The establishment of more health facilities in Nigeria especially in the rural areas will help ensure that the people access health services when the need arise. The recruitment of more health personal’s and will also contribute to reduce the large deficit of health officers that the country is facing. The quality of health services will also improve, and deaths will be cut off too (Michael & Ashenafi, 2014). Take Critical Account of How Inequalities and Deprivation Affect Ill Health and Health Development Planning Two of the biggest challenges that the African economy, especially Nigeria and its health sector faces are inequality and deprivation. There are enormous disparities in Nigeria between the rich and the poor. Also, there has been inequality in the distribution of resources in the country as the urban areas have continued to develop at the expense of the countryside. For instance, due to the vast resources allocated in the urban areas, the quality of series in such health facilities has been high and thus any service needed has been purchased (Woodman & Kinman, 2014). However, this is not the case in the rural areas that suffer from extreme poverty. The rural areas receive fewer resources to help develop the health sector and thus have continued to lag behind. It is therefore not possible to offer all the services that the local people require. Inequality has reduced the possibility of the rural stationed health facilities hiring more staff members with experiences to deal with the growing number of sick people in the countryside. The deprivation of essential resources in certain areas in Nigeria has also not helped in the development of the health facilities (Phillips, 2015). Due to the inequality and deprivation of resources, it has become impossible for the local health officers to purchases certain health facilities for use in the treatment of complex diseases such as cancer in the rural areas. The people have therefore been forced to travel considerable distances to the major cities to receive essential health services. The lack of facilities has also increased the mortality rate, as the doctors from the marginalized areas are not able to cope with the growing challenge of doctor to patient ratio in the understaffed facilities (Olabode & Kasali, 2014). The two issues of inequalities and deprivation have hampered health development planning. As the number of resources allocated to the health sector continues to reduce, the implementation of surveillance programs to minimize the chance of disease outbreak through intensive research have been foregone. The management of major health areas has not managed to budget for the few resources that are availed to them with the numerous needs that await to be satisfied with the few resources available. The hiring of more doctors, the purchasing of medicines and health facilities as well as the payment of the local health officers has therefore become close to impossible for such marginalized areas (Thomas, 2014). Conclusion There are severe concerns involving maternal as well as child nutrition, which usually lead to Sub-Saharan Africa experiencing way too high morbidity and mortality rates. The best part of these trends is that the interventions required to address these issues are well known. The most appropriate strategies needed in these scenarios should involve the intensification of effective interventions to higher levels, which can improve the nutritional levels of both mother and infants. The most affected African countries, such as Nigeria should seek to take full advantage of their human resource potential without neglecting the nutrition of its populations, particularly that of both women and kids. According to Daelmans & Saadeh (2003), a delay of only one day to intervene equals a missed opportunity to make a difference; therefore, governments require constant commitment, along with unwavering resources to address the health concerns of mothers and infants. References Abdalla, M. Y. (2014). Role of Total Quality Management in Setting Occupational Safety and Health Management System in Small and Medium Size Organizations (Doctoral dissertation, Sudan University of Science and Technology). Bowen, K. J., Ebi, K., & Friel, S. (2014). 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