Integrative Health: Maternal and Child Health

Maternal and Child Health
Receiving health education during one’s pregnancy is a critical aspect of prenatal care. Health education profoundly impacts maternal and child healthcare outcomes, including increased rates of initiation, low birth weight, reduced prematurity, and breastfeeding continuation (Herval et al., 2019). Healthcare providers and educators should perform and incorporate educational activities to create awareness among pregnant women help them prepare for childbirth and the postnatal period. Pregnant women represent various population groups in multiple contexts. Policymakers and healthcare providers need to examine the local, regional, and national strategies used to educate and promote healthcare outcomes of pregnant women. Education programs that target pregnant women are associated with potentially positive outcomes by expanding their knowledge in nutrition, breastfeeding, birth, family planning, child care, baby development, maternal health, social support, physical activity, and drug abuse.
Previous studies reveal that education, particularly among pregnant women, is positively related to desirable health outcomes and reduced infant, child, and maternal mortality (Mensch et al., 2019). Educated pregnant women are more likely to be healthier than their illiterate counterparts. Additionally, they are can better take care of their infants and children because they are knowledgeable about health and nutrition. Maternal education is important because it plays a critical role in preventing and eliminating poor health outcomes and illnesses. Healthcare providers should also focus on maternal literacy because it is associated with preventive-oriented health behaviors such as effective use of health services, prolonged breastfeeding periods, and exceptional child care. As a healthcare professional, knowledge in maternal education would be valuable in training pregnant women to improve the quality of healthcare delivery and maternal and child health outcomes. Healthcare professionals are also expected to guide pregnant on the strategies of improving the child’s healthcare outcomes, especially during the postpartum period.
According to the World Health Organization, maternal, infant, and child health has improved exponentially over the past 20 years because of technological advancement characterized by improved healthcare provision and the promotion of maternal education (Chen et al., 2018). Similar findings were obtained by Vikram and Vanneman (2020), who deduced that educating pregnant women has a causal impact on the health of the mother and her child. Their research links maternal literacy to child morbidity, immunization, nutrition, medical care, survival, and breastfeeding. Educating pregnant women increases the chances of a child’s survival by 20%, which means maternal literacy reduces immortality and health outcomes (Burroway & Hargrove, 2018). Furthermore, educating women enables them to understand the type of diet to adopt, when and how to seek healthcare services, and follow physician instructions and prescriptions. Both qualitative and quantitative data available from the previous researches point towards the benefits of educating pregnant women to improve maternal and child health outcomes.
Educating pregnant women about maternal and child health outcomes can be a daunting process without skilled staff and training resources. Training should be provided to healthcare professionals to effectively conduct non-evasive prenatal tests, counsel, and educate pregnant women. Providing healthcare professionals with training increases their confidence to discuss maternal and child health issues with pregnant women (Oxenford et al., 2017). Training also improved the healthcare providers’ perceive and actual knowledge and skills. Educating pregnant women also requires resources such as projectors, PowerPoint presentations, videos, a written fact sheet that contains information about maternal, infant, and child health, and other teaching aids, including charts and notebooks. Healthcare organizations providing prenatal and postnatal care should invest heavily in educating pregnant women who visit the facility. The availability of knowledgeable staff and pregnant teaching resources profoundly impacts the training process. The role of healthcare facilities is to provide the required workforce and resources to ensure that pregnant women are effectively educated.
Educating mothers is a life-long process because pregnant women visit healthcare facilities each day throughout the month. However, healthcare organizations should train their staff to make them competent and prepared to educate pregnant women who visit the facility (Oxenford et al., 2017). Additionally, it should provide all the required resources to educate pregnant women to increase maternal and child health outcomes. The project requires one month for the completion of background research and the training of healthcare professionals. The project will also focus on medical scholarly articles, healthcare organizations, and government databases. The resources used in the report will be selected primarily based on their relevance to pregnant women's education on maternal and child health outcomes.
Project Timeline

Time

Activity

4 -10 September 2021

Background research on the topic

11 – 18 September 2021

-Procurement and development of training resources
-Identifying the best training processes

19 – 27 September 2021

-Training of healthcare staff
-Identifying target population

1-10 October 2021

-Educating pregnant women in the communities

In conclusion, educating pregnant women has been positively associated with desirable maternal and infant healthcare outcomes. Educated pregnant women are more likely to be healthier than their illiterate counterparts. They can better take care of their infants and children because they are knowledgeable about health and nutrition. Healthcare providers are expected to guide pregnant on the strategies of improving the child's healthcare outcomes, especially during the postpartum period. In addition, training healthcare professionals increase their confidence to discuss maternal and child health issues with pregnant women. Resources for educating pregnant women include projectors, PowerPoint presentations, videos, and written fact sheets containing maternal, infant, and child health information.
Contextual Factors That Can Diminish or Exacerbate Health Inequities
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), health inequities entail differences in the distribution of medical resources and health statuses among distinct groups of people. In particular, this problem might arise from different social conditions, which involve where people live, work, grow, age, and are born (World Health Organization, 2018). Environmental, economic, and social factors can significantly affect individuals’ health. For example, people living in abject poverty might lack resources to address their medical needs since many of them do not have health insurance. Four primary contextual factors influencing health inequities: cultural differences, social stratification, differential vulnerability, and differential exposure.
Historical and Contemporary Perceptions
Human differences such as ethnicity, class, gender, and race encompass a prevailing American narrative that draws a line between the past and present, with the 1960s and70s being crucial in the narrative. The narrative indicates that before the 1960s, American society was marred with the effects of Indian removal, slavery, Jim Crow laws, slavery, among other issues. All women and people of color were prevented from serving on juries, voting, running for office, and being in many other occupations. Additionally, people with disabilities suffered social exclusion and discrimination. However, the 60s and 70s came with a revolution across the United States, leading to the creation of organizations and movements aimed at ending the injustices. As a result, there has been a narrative that cultural, political, and social institutions have improved in terms of diversity, equality, and inclusion. Some of the highlights of the progress include the voting rights enacted in 1965, the Civil Rights Act signed in 1964, the Fair Housing Act, among others. However, the perceptions may be deceiving, as recent history has proven that disparities persist in the United States in terms o race, gender, socioeconomic position, geography, immigration status, and ethnicity. Such disparities have been known to also lead to health inequality.
           Racism
           Disparities based on ethnicity and race are the most persistent and probably difficult to address. Racial factors play an essential role in the development of socioeconomic disparities. Therefore, it is impossible to address the issue of racism without including socioeconomic factors. African-Americans have continued to experience systemic racism, with the most noteworthy being in the American criminal justice department. Additionally, African-American continue to experience racism in healthcare.
           Due to disparities in the American healthcare system, African-Americans experience various ailments without receiving adequate healthcare services at high rates, leading to lower life expectancy than other races. For instance, the Affordable Care Act has helped in ensuring there is health coverage for many people living in the United States. However, many African-Americans are still uninsured, with most of the insured being through private or employer-sponsored health insurance. Additionally, the high cost of coverage has prevented most African Americans from getting insured since a majority are low-income earners. Moreover, many others are underinsured; they are insured, but the coverage plans do not cover much, and the individuals have to pay cash for healthcare services.
Cultural Differences
Cultural differences can exacerbate the problem of health inequities, particularly when the needs of a specific group of people are not addressed fully. Individuals from distinctive cultures have things that they value the most such as belief, hierarchy structure, treatments etc. Without understanding their beliefs, norms, and behaviors, it can be challenging to develop effective treatment strategies. Values that might be considered crucial in one group of people might not matter in another demographic. For instance, some communities prefer using herbal medicine while others do not.
Cultural differences might cause other significant issues, such as structural racism. Some communities are discriminated against based on their skin color, religion, and cultural, ethnic, or racial differences. Structural racism entails the totality of ways in which society promotes racial discrimination via mutually rei...