A very global issue is the insufficient health care available to pregnant women and their newborn babies in developing countries. “Greater than 500,000 women die each year as a result of complications during pregnancy and childbirth.” (Schwartz, 2013) The majority of these deaths (85%) are occurring in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This global issue is greatly affected by the lack of health professionals, not enough resources and preventable diseases that aren’t being controlled. It is extremely important for the public to take action because it is countries similar to Canada that have the resources to make a difference. These developing countries can be put on a better path by offering finances however; the most important resource that can be offered is education.
The reason as to why developing countries have much higher death rates is because of the health care that is being provided. The maternity statistics are nothing short of horrific and in most developing countries, the reason for a large number of these deaths is due to inadequate prenatal care and an absence of health professionals during procedures. (Schwartz, 2013) Many pregnant women in developing countries will not go full term because of many diseases, malnourishment and lack of prenatal care. Preventable diseases include Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria. In malaria- endemic countries, 50 million women become pregnant. Having malaria while pregnant is one the world’s most important public health concerns. (Schwartz, 2013) A very concerning virus during pregnancy is HIV/ AIDS because it is very threatening to the mother’s health and also extremely concerning for the fetus. If the baby is delivered vaginally, it has a very high risk of transmission and in s...
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...lth care professionals. Unfortunately, in developing countries it is a much different scenario with 500 000 women dying due to pregnancy. It is not sensible to let this continue and if a change is not made then the people in developing countries are not being given the chance at life that people in developed countries are being handed from the day they are born.
References:
Veneman, A. M. (2007). Education is key to reducing child mortality: The link between maternal health and education. UN Chronicle, 44(4), 58-59.
Schwartz, D. A. (2013). Challenges in improvement of perinatal health in developing nations. Archives of pathology & laboratory medicine, 137(6), 742- 746. Doi:10.5858/arpa.2012-0089-ED
Obeng-Odoon, F. (2012). Health, wealth and poverty in developing countries: Beyond the state, market and civil society. Health Sociology Review, 21(2), 156-164
Two-thirds of infants die during the first month of life due to low birth weight (Lia-Hoagberg et al, 1990). One reason for this outcome is primarily due to difficulties in accessing prenatal care. Prenatal health care encompasses the health of women in both pre and post childbearing years and provides the support for a healthy lifestyle for the mother and fetus and/or infant. This form of care plays an important role in the prevention of poor birth outcomes, such as prematurity, low birth weight and infant mortality, where education, risk assessment, treatment of complications, and monitoring of fetus development are vital (McKenzie, Pinger,& Kotecki, 2012). Although every woman is recommended to receive prenatal health care, low-income and disadvantaged minority women do not seek care due to structural and individual barriers.
As mention earlier that a Jennifer Deane was brave enough to speak out the truth of what she did during pregnancy. Jennifer told the class that she smoked a cigarette before going to check for her fetus (personal communication, March 28, 2016). As I mentioned about the risks of smoking earlier, in my Drugs and Behavior class, the professor also lecture us about the consequences of smoking and drinking alcohol while pregnant. In my Medical Sociology class, we watched a documentary on pregnant women in Africa, called Dead Mums Don’t Cry. This documentary was remarkable because it compared and contrasted the different point between Africa and the United Kingdom. As the reporter, Steve Bradshaw, stated in the documentary that many women died during their pregnancy because most of them were under age, but most of all it was because of the undeveloped medical materials that even the uncritical situations cannot be treated (Bradshaw & Quinn, 2005). Unlike in the film or the documentary where women can have C-section whenever the situation is critical, women in Africa cannot have that because often time they live far away and the hospital has limited
2) Identify three social determinants of health that contribute to the development of obstetric fistulas in women in developing countries; provide rationale for your
Mukherjee, S. (2013, July 30). Four Ways That Poverty Hurts Americans’ Long-Term Health. Retrieved November 12, 2014, from http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/07/30/2381471/four-ways-poverty-impacts-americans-health/
“The only real nation is humanity” (Farmer 123). This quote represents a huge message that is received in, Tracy Kidder’s, Mountains Beyond Mountains. This book argues that universal healthcare is a right and not a privilege. Kidder’s book also shows the audience that every individual, no matter what the circumstances, is entitled to receive quality health care. In the book Kidder represents, Paul Farmer, a man who spends his entire life determined to improve the health care of impoverished areas around the world, namely Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the world. By doing this the audience learns of the horrible circumstances, and the lack of quality health care that nations like Haiti live with everyday, why every person has the right to healthcare no matter what, and how cost effectiveness should not determine whether or not these people get to live or die. Two texts that also argue this idea are Monte Leach’s “Ensuring Health Care as a Global Human Right,” and Darshak Sanghavi’s “Is it Cost Effective to Treat the World’s Poor.” Leach’s article is an interview with Benjamin Crème that illustrates why food, shelter, education, and healthcare are human rights that have to be available to everyone. He shares many of the same views on health care as Farmer, and the two also share similar solutions to this ongoing problem. Leach also talks about the rapidly growing aids epidemic, and how it must be stopped. Like farmer, he also argues that it is easier to prevent these diseases then to cure them. Furthermore, Sanghavi’s article represents many of the questions that people would ask about cost effectiveness. Yet similar to Farmer’s views, Sanghavi argues that letting the poor d...
Illegal abortions performed in unsafe conditions contribute to a great number of deaths every year. According to Wendy Wanlund, “In 1930, illegal abortion was the official cause of death for nearly 2,700 women, or 18 percent of childbirth-related deaths recorded that year” (Abortion Debates). In the more than four decades since Roe v. Wade was decided, thousands of American women’s lives have been saved by access to legal abortion care. Furthermore, making abortions illegal would force women to go about terminating their unwanted pregnancies with unsafe procedures. Every year, millions of women in the developing world are treated for complications from unsafe pregnancy termination. These complications can include heavy bleeding, infection and sepsis, as well as more severe conditions, such as lacerations or uterine perforation, that can put a woman 's life at risk. Lack of access to abortion clinics does not result in fewer abortions, it results in unsafe and illegal abortions.
Over the years, the social determinants of health (SDOH) have been receiving more attention due to its importance in determining peoples’ health access, health quality and health outcome. The social determinants of health have been described by various scholars as the situation or environmental condition in which people are born, or where they grow, live and work; unfortunately these conditions have continued to affect and determine people’s ability to access proper care.1-5 In other words, the SDOH continues to consciously and unconsciously influence people’s access to most opportunities in life including access to healthcare services both in developed and developing countries.2 This issues have continue to deteriorate in most developing countries increasing people’s susceptibility to multi-morbidity among different age groups, with a slight increase among the elderly.6
Maternal education has often been suggested and examined while looking at factors that influences child morbidity. While correlations between maternal education and child health have been observed in diverse parts of the world, and much discussion has focused on the various pathways on how maternal education has contributed to lowering child morbidity, there is an important literature gap that has not been bridged. Research on predictors of child morbidity has always focused on maternal characteristics, neglecting the role of the father in influencing the health of the child. It has often been argued that children of educated mothers experience lower morbidity than children of uneducated mothers (Desai), however, there is the question
Access to health care in Ethiopia has left many people without proper health care and eventual death. Millions of people living in Ethiopia die because of the lack of access to the health care system; improving the access to the healthcare system in Ethiopia can prevent many of the deaths that occur, but doing so will pose a grueling and challenging task. According to Chaya (2012), poor health coverage is of particular concern in rural Ethiopia, where access to any type of modern health institution is limited at best (p. 1). If citizen of Ethiopia had more accessibility of the healthcare system more individuals could be taught how to practice safe health practices. In Ethiopia where HIV, and maternal and infant mortality rates are sky high, more education on the importance of using the healthcare system and makin...
The infant mortality rate of a country is said to be a “reflection of a society’s commitment to ensuring access to health care, adequate nutrition… and sufficient income to prevent the adverse consequences of poverty”(1). As defined by the World Data Bank, a country’s infant mortality rate is measured by the number if infants, per every 1000 live births, do not survive to be older than one year of age (3). The female unemployment rate refers to the percentage of the female labor force that is without work but available for and seeking employment (2). Previous research conducted by the Canadian Public Health Association has shown that unemployment can result in “direct material deprivation”, that could lead to an infant’s survival being compromised (4). A greater understanding of this relationship could give rise to national and international efforts to support unemployed mothers. It is reasonable to consider that there is a relationship between a country’s level of female unemployment and it’s infant mortality rate.
Nearly 50,000 people, including 30,000 children, die each day due to poverty-related problems and preventable disease in underdeveloped Countries. That doesn’t include the other millions of people who are infected with AIDS and other incurable diseases. Especially those living in Sub-Saharan Africa (70%), or “the Third-World,” and while we fight to finish our homework, children in Africa fight to survive without food, or clean water. During the next few paragraphs I will give proof that poverty and disease are the two greatest challenges facing under developed countries.
Women’s reproductive rights are a global issue in today’s world. Women have to fight to have the right to regulate their own bodies and reproductive choices, although in some countries their voices are ignored. Abortion, sterilization, contraceptives, and family planning services all encompass this global issue of women’s reproductive rights.
"Key Facts: Poverty and Poor Health." Health Poverty Action. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.
The Millennium Development Goal Report 2013 states that the progress towards achieving the target of reducing maternal mortality by two thirds between 1990 and 2015 significantly falls short of the set goal and the indices are still poor in the developing countries especially sub-Saharan Africa (United Nations, 2013). The People’s Health Movement (PHM), through its WHO Watch clearly identifies the huge omission of Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) in the WHO’s revised strategy on traditional medicine (PHM WHO Watch, 2013). The magnitude of this omission appears to be puzzling owing to the fact that in just about three decades ago the WHO aimed to reduce death of women associated with child bearing through the training of TBAs and promoted their integration into the orthodox health care system. The WHO calls for a collaborative effort in achieving the goal of reducing maternal deaths. Yet, one can insinuate that the TBAs are no longer seen as a resource to be harnessed by public health professionals in addressing the issues associated with childbearing (Langwick, 2011). The ‘friend or foe’ mentality can clearly be observed in a statement made by one of Nigeria’s chief leaders in the fight towards reducing maternal mortality published in Nigeria’s foremost editorial daily newspaper magazine, the Punch. He said that ‘it was no longer acceptable for women to give birth in TBA centres, TBAs were no longer required in labour and delivery because of the availability of enough trained or skilled personnel, and he promised to jail any TBA involved in a maternal death’ (Punch, 2013). As such, it is important for us to critically analyse and evaluate the relevance of TBAs in promoting health from a contemporary global health perspective. I...
Institute for Research on Poverty. (2013). Health & Poverty. Retrieved February 20, 2014, from http://www.irp.wisc.edu/research/health.htm