Education on Pregnancy Self-Care and Newborn Care Essentials

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Education on Pregnancy Self-Care and Newborn Care Essentials

Pregnancies can become fatal to the mother or the baby if proper natal care is not observed. 25% of all the pregnancies result in maternal death during pregnancies. Good care should, therefore, should be taken for the sake of the mother’s health and the unborn baby. The mothers should promote healthy behaviors and appropriate parenting skills. If the care is inadequate then the critical link in the continuum of care will be broken; this will affect both the mothers and the baby.

Family, friends and the community in which the pregnant woman lives should identify her as pregnant (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2014). This information will enable them embark on a surveillance initiative that will help them be able to assist the pregnant woman in case of emergency. The mother should spread the news of her pregnancy to family, friends, and significant community. The mother will then be favored in some contexts such as queues at the bank or the grocery store or even when she needs to carry heavy loads.

The mothers should recognize and manage any pregnancy related complications such as pre-eclampsia. This will still rely on the effectiveness of the identification and surveillance processes. They should also recognize and treat any concurrent or underlying illness. They should screen for conditions and diseases like anemia, mental health problems, stress symptoms, sexually transmitted infections like syphilis, and HIV infection. A mother who follows these guidelines will be able to eradicate any risk of the unborn baby being affected by pregnancy related complications, underlying illnesses, conditions, and diseases that they might be suffering from.

The mother should consider preventive measures of circumstances that would otherwise adversely affect their unborn child. They should administer tetanus toxoid immunization, prevent malarial treatment during pregnancy, iron and folic acid, bed nets that are insecticide treated, and de-worming among others. These are some of the applicable preventive measures. The mother should take this segment seriously and always ask a qualified medical practitioner about what she is unsure about.

She should make at least four visits to the prenatal care unit. This number of visits is only viable for healthy mothers who have no underlying medical complications (Bloom & Wypij, 1999). Unhealthy mothers may have to make more visits. Focused antenatal care as designed by the World health Organization recommended four numbers of visits that are goal-oriented. This number of visits has been segmented based on costs and all the other barriers to the access and the supply of antenatal care. These visits are aimed at discovering the underlying problems to prevent future fatal deaths of the mother or the unborn baby.

During the pregnancy period and after the baby has been delivered, the parents should ensure that they promote healthy behaviors at home. Injury prevention and safety enhancement should not be ignored. Healthy diets and lifestyles should always be upheld as the baby needs a lot of nutrients during this period of development. Some nutrients such as iron are very important to infants and the mother should facilitate them with such nutrients. They should seek advice from nutritionists to ensure that they and their babies are eating foods that they need the most at this stage.

The mother and her partner should prepare themselves physically and emotionally for the deliverance and care of their baby (Hall & McGillivray, 2010). The mother should be ready for early and exclusive breastfeeding and newborn care that is essential. Both parents should brace themselves up for their duties as supportive companions. They should vouch for postnatal family planning or birth spacing. This will ensure that time between the current and the next pregnancies are not such that they might affect the upbringing of any of the children. Children need a lot of care and attention so the patents should not have so many children all at once that they are not able to divide adequate attention to all their children. Observation of the babies is key to quality parental control. Ill habits among the children are easily rooted out if the parents discover them early enough before they grow into the characters of the babies.

In summary, childbirth and baby care is very essential for the deliverance and raising of a healthy infant. The mother should not ignore these guidelines but rather take them seriously and follow them all to the latter. Nutrition, prevention from diseases, and preparation for parenthood is very essential.

References

Hall, M., Chng, P. K., & McGillivray, I. (2010). Is routine antenatal care worthwhile?. The Lancet, 316(8185), 78-80.

Bloom, S. S., Lippeveld, T., & Wypij, D. (2009). Does antenatal care make a difference to safe delivery? A study in urban Uttar Pradesh, India. Health policy and planning, 14(1), 38

Kail, R. V., & Cavanaugh, J. C. (2014). Essentials of human development: A life–‐span view (1st ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.