Child Development and Public Health

This week we were asked to choose to  public health measure that impact children's development all over this world. In this post I will address the concern of breastfeeding.

This topic is meaningful to me because although I do not have children of my own, I do plan to have children one day and my plan is to breastfeed. My sister tried with my niece and she had a very hard time and gave up. I would like to research this topic for that reason and just for the knowledge of the effects, results and benefits as well as breastfeeding in another country.

In breastfeeding, nutrition starts with colostrum which is a thick, high calorie fluid secreted by the mothers breast at the time of birth. Three days after the mother gives birth and the breast begin to produce milk. The milk that a mother produce is sterile, rich in iron, vitamins, and nutrients that are newly discovered that are good for the brain and for the body.

It is a known fact that children who are breastfeed are have less sickness during infancy. Protection from disease is lifelong and the breastfeed children are less likely to become obese in the adult years, less likely to develop diabetes, and heart disease.

Breast milk is the best for preterm babies and it is even recommended that a mother that cannot provide breast milk, doctors recommend that the milk of another mother be used (Berger, 2009).

I have a friend that grew up in Ghana, West Africa and saw women breastfeeding all the time - her teachers in school, women at church, traders at the market, neighbors - and they did so without cover and without shame. Ghana is a very conservative country, low-cut tops are frowned upon, but breastfeeding is okay, its actually encouraged. 


The ways that this topic and information I learned may impact me and my future work is being able to share the knowledge that I have with new moms and moms that are looking to breast feed and don't know the benefits. Having resources to share mainly is how this information will impact my future work.

Berger, K. S. (2012). The developing person through childhood (6th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
 

Childbirth In Your Life and Around the World

Unfortunately, I hadn't had the experience of having my own child, yet shared in the experience with my sister having my niece. Here's an experience to remember:

The day had finally come, and we could not have been more excited! After 2 long months of bed rest, my sister was finally checking into Labor and Delivery at Jeff Anderson Hospital for the birth of her first child Little Ms. Zion Gabrielle Cole!

I never shall forget 4:00 p.m. on May 23, 2005 (the check in date). As we got settled in our room, the nurses were busy doing their jobs, checking blood pressure, asking questions, and handling paperwork. The moment was surreal to me as well as my sister and her husband, to know in just a few hours we would be wearing titles that we had never worn before, MOM & DAD, auntie and grandmother! Charged with caring for a precious gift, and only praying God had already placed everything needed in us to rear this child.

It was 8:13 p.m. now, our mom had arrived and my sister was getting the epidural in my back. Not long after that,the entire bottom half of her body was numb. Her doctor,r Dr. Ronnye Purvis walked in the room and boy were we happy to see his face, but he came barring bad news. He informed us that my sister had not dilated at all! He said he would be prescribing medicine to induce her labor, which would cause her to dilate. I must admit I was terrified at that point and so was she, praying everything was okay with the little one, but Dr. Purvis assured us this was something very common, and everything would be fine. After our discussion, nurses rushed in and begin pumping her body with “Pitocin”. We were encouraged by the nurses to let her get some rest while the medicine took effect, because she would need her strength for the delivery.

After several checks during the night, her body still was not dilated enough. It wasn’t until about 12:51p.m. on May 24, 2005 Dr. Purvis gave the command to rush her to the delivery room. The moment had arrived. After several grueling hours of pushing and breathing, she finally gave her last push and out came Zion! The room went horribly silent! Zion was not crying! My sister gazed into her husband’s face and begin to scream, “Why is she not crying?” “Why is she not crying?” As tears streamed down her face, I could see doctors and nurses running over to work on our little baby girl. She and her husband locked hands and begin to silently pray and within just a few minutes we finally heard the long awaited cry!! It was like music to our ears! Our little angel had made her arrival and was doing just fine!

I chose this example because my niece is the only birth that I have ever shared the experience of birth with and for that reason she is so close to my heart. The birth is highly important in the development. Many times problems during the birth can often lead to developmental problems throughout the life of the child. Healthy birth, in most cases, leads to a healthy developmental process.

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7 Years Later....She's still our bundle of joy!

 

The Region that I chose to examine childbirth is Nigeria

 

In Nigeria, they are struggling to dramatically improve health care for mothers but the country is confronted with many obstacles. From 1990- 2010, 14% of the worlds deaths related to childbearing are in Nigeria. Now Africa's most populous country, with 160 million people, are working to cut the maternal death rate in half by 2015.

 

A mother of three stated that this is the case because mothers have to have their babies without medical supervision and this is dangerous. They have the children at home because they can not afford healthcare or to give birth in a medical facility. Nigeria's rate - 630 deaths for every 100,000 lives births - in the world's 10th highest. Poverty, isolation, traditions and lack of access to heath care are among the other causes for the high death rate of women during childbirth. I read that if a woman from a poor village starts to bleed excessively during childbirth, she has only hours to live without emergency medical treatment. In many remote villages, modern transportation is not always available and even if it is, many women can not afford to pay the fare. Getting from her from her home to the primary care maybe a huge problem. They can go on a camel, on a donkey or carried by hand on a motorcycle. Then even those who make it to the hospital on time might not be able to get emergency treatment. There may be no nurses and definitely no doctors in most primary health care places, or there is no equipment.

 

In reading on childbirth in Nigeria, I realized how fortunate we are to have health care and just thinking back to when my niece was being delivered and she was having complication, how we had doctors to reassure us on the procedure they would take and let us know that it would be ok. Even when she had been delivered but we did not hear her crying. They knew exactly what to do to make her ok. It's so unfortunate, not having the medical supervision and even a safe way of getting the hospital. I can absolutely not imagine, being in labor and having to ride a camel or a donkey, or getting to the hospital to find that there is no medical staff there to assist in such a vital part of the beginning of a child's life.