Understanding Maternal Health

Do you believe there is a need for public health influence in the area of family planning? What would be the role? I believe public health has many benefits for every individual especially women. One of the benefits is that family planning services allows individuals to aimly achieved their own family size, and contributes to improved health outcomes for infants, children, women as well as families (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1999, pg. 1075). Some these benefits services include educating about preventing sexually transmitted infection such as HIV, herpes, syphilis etc.

Besides from education, they also counsel patients especially women who are taking contraceptives and/or IUD devices. Counseling is critical part in health care because it helped women and men to be aware of the risks that they are taking when it comes to having another child and know all the unexpected and expected outcomes when it comes to prenatal and postnatal care. Effective methods such as Breast, pelvic examinations, breast and cervical screenings are found the first step for women who are at risk for breast or cervical cancer.

Without these services, there is a high chance of more unintended pregnancies in America as well as premature babies and mortality. Recent article, Guttmacher Institute (2012) stated “Each year, publicly funded family planning services prevent 1. 94 million unintended pregnancies, including 400,000 teen pregnancies (Guttmacher institute, 2012, pg. 3). With that being said, family planning services have been effective for women who decided not to get pregnant.

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It also helped Medicaid, a federal USA health program for low income adults and children, by Medicaid saving a lot of expenditures from pregnancy-related care ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1999, pg. 1074). With the help of Family planning program, this helped save a lot of families from psychological problems to financial problems. Unfortunately, Guttmacher (2012) listed most women who are in a poverty line, have low education level or are single parents are less likely to have access of family planning services (pg. 5).

Some of the obstacles for these women who are not on the family planning services are because of lack of awareness about family planning services, limited access to publicly funded services and access to insurance coverage. These obstacles challenges because many americans are still left out of insurance. With the help of Obama administration which is trying to get every single american to have affordable insurance. This will help bridge the gap even more close for more additional women to take the step into getting family planning services.

Elements of preconception care should be integrated into every primary care visit for women of reproductive age. Preconception care must not be limited to a single visit to a health care provider, but rather be a process of care designed to meet the needs of an individual. As part of comprehensive preconception care, providers should encourage patients to develop a reproductive life plan. A reproductive life plan is a set of goals and action steps based on personal values and resources about whether and when to become pregnant and have (or not have) children. Providers also must educate patients about how their reproductive life plan impacts contraceptive and medical decision-making. Increased awareness of the importance of preconception care can be achieved through public outreach and improved collaboration between health care providers. Currently, only 30. 3 percent of women report receiving pre-pregnancy health counseling. Future efforts should promote research to further define the evidence-based standards of preconception care, determine its cost-effectiveness, and improve tracking of the proportion of women obtaining these services.

Reference:

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Achievements in public health, 1900–1999: Family planning. MMWR Weekly. 1999 Dec 3;48(47):1073-1080. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4847a1.htm
2. Guttmacher Institute. In brief: Facts on publicly funded contraceptive services in the United States. Washington; Guttmacher Institute; 2010 April. Available from: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contraceptive_serv.pdf [PDF - 375 KB]

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