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Ensuring The Accessibility of Standard Health Care System and Reproductive Rights For Pregnant Women and Children Amid Covid-19 Pandemic. Overview
Ensuring The Accessibility of Standard Health Care System and Reproductive Rights For Pregnant Women and Children Amid Covid-19 Pandemic. Overview
Ensuring The Accessibility of Standard Health Care System and Reproductive Rights For Pregnant Women and Children Amid Covid-19 Pandemic. Overview
Women Healthcare:
Women's health refers to women's health, which differs from that of men in many ways. Women's health
is an example of population health, where health is defined by the World Health Organization as "the
state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not just the absence of illness or ailment". Many
groups, often treated only as women's reproductive health, advocate a broader definition of women's
general health, better expressed as "women's health". These differences are further aggravated in
developing countries, where women whose health includes both their risks and experience are further
disadvantaged.
Although women in developed countries have narrowed the gender gap in life expectancy and now live
longer than men, in many health care areas they suffer from earlier and more serious illnesses with worse
results. Gender remains an important social determinant of health because women's health is influenced
not only by their biology but also by conditions such as poverty, employment and family responsibilities.
Women have long been disadvantaged in many ways, including social and economic power that limits
their access to life needs, including healthcare, and the more disadvantaged, as in developing countries,
the greater the adverse health effects.
The reproductive and sexual health of women differs significantly from that of men. Even in developed
countries, pregnancy and childbirth pose significant risks for women whose maternal mortality causes
more than a quarter of a million deaths a year, with large differences between developing and developed
countries. Comorbidity due to other non-reproductive disorders such as cardiovascular disease contributes
to both mortality and morbidity in pregnancy, including preeclampsia. Sexually transmitted infections
have serious consequences for women and infants. Mother-to-child transmission leads to results such as
stillbirth and death in newborns, and pelvic inflammatory disease leads to infertility. In addition,
infertility due to many other causes, birth control, unplanned pregnancy, consensual sexual activity, and
the struggle for access to abortion cause further strain for women.
While the rates of major causes of death, cardiovascular disease, and cancer and lung disease are similar
in women and men, women have different experiences. Lung cancer has overtaken all other cancers as the
leading cause of death in women, followed by breast, colon, and ovarian, uterine and cervical cancer.
While smoking is the main cause of lung cancer, the risk of developing cancer is three times higher in
women who do not smoke than in men who do not smoke. Even so, breast cancer remains the most
common cancer among women in industrialized countries and one of the most important chronic diseases
in women, while cervical cancer remains one of the most common cancers in developing countries
associated with the human papillomavirus (HPV), an important sexually transmitted disease. HPV
vaccine along with screening offers promise to control these diseases. Other important health problems
for women include cardiovascular disease, depression, dementia, osteoporosis and anemia. A major
obstacle to promoting women's health was their underrepresentation in research studies. Inequality has
been addressed in the United States and other western countries through the establishment of centers of
excellence in women's health research and large-scale clinical trials such as the Women's Health
Initiative.
Women's experiences with health and illness differ from those of men due to unique biological, social and
behavioral conditions. The biological differences vary from phenotypes to cell biology and have unique
risks for the development of diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as "a state of
complete physical, mental and social well-being and not just the absence of illnesses or ailments".
Women's health is an example of the health of the population, the health of a certain defined population.
Women's health has been described as a "patchwork quilt with gaps". Although many of the problems
related to women's health relate to their reproductive health, including maternal and child health, genital
and breast health, and endocrine (hormonal) health, including menstruation, birth control, and menopause
wider understanding of women's health all aspects of women's health were called for and "women's
health" replaced by "women's health". The World Health Organization believes that inappropriate
emphasis on reproductive health is a major obstacle to access for all women to quality health care.
Diseases that affect both men and women, such as cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, manifest
themselves differently in women. Women's health problems also include medical situations in which
women face problems that are not directly related to their biology, such as: B. Gender-based access to
medical treatment and other socio-economic factors. Women's health is particularly important due to
widespread discrimination against women in the world, which puts them at a disadvantage.
A number of advocates of health and medical research, such as the Society for Women's Health Research
in the United States, support this broader definition, and not just questions specific to the human female
anatomy, to include areas in which biological gender differences between women and men exist. Women
also need more health care and have more access to the health system than men. While part of it is due to
their reproductive and sexual health needs, they also have more chronic non-reproductive health problems
such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, mental illness, diabetes and osteoporosis. Another important
perspective is the realization that events throughout the life cycle (or life course) from the uterus to aging
affect women's growth, development and health. The life course perspective is one of the key strategies of
the World Health Organization.
Non-reproductive health:
Cardiovascular disease
Cancer
Mental health
Dementia
Bone health
Anemia
Violence
Additional Information:
n addition to combating gender inequality in research, a number of countries have made women's health a
subject of national initiatives. For example, the Department of Health and Human Services set up a
Women's Health Office (OWH) in the United States in 1991 to improve women's health in America by
coordinating the women's health agenda across the Department and other agencies. In the 21st century,
the office has focused on underserved women. In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) established its own Office for Women's Health (OWH) in 1994, which was officially
approved by the 2010 Affordable Health Care Act (ACA).
Internationally, many United Nations organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have
specific programs on women's health or maternal health, sexual and reproductive health. In addition, the
United Nations' global goals deal directly and indirectly with many issues related to women's health.
These include the Millennium Development Goals 2000 (MDG) and its successor, the Sustainable
Development Goals, which were adopted in September 2015 following the report on progress towards
MDGs (Report on the 2015 Millennium Development Goals). For example, the eight MDG goals that
eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and
empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, fight HIV / AIDS malaria and other
diseases that Ensure environmental sustainability and a global partnership for development, all impacts on
women's health, as well as all seventeen SDG goals, in addition to the specific SDG5: gender equality and
empowerment of all women and girls.
Current Situation:
An estimated 116 million babies are born in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, UNICEF said
before Mother's Day today. These babies are expected to be recognized as a pandemic on March 11, up to
40 weeks after the approval of COVID-19, which is currently affecting health systems and medical
supply chains around the world.
New mothers and newborns are greeted by harsh realities, UNICEF said, including global containment
measures such as curfews and curfews; Health centers overwhelmed with response efforts; Supply and
equipment bottlenecks; and a shortage of adequately qualified obstetricians as health workers, including
midwives, is being used to treat COVID-19 patients.
“Millions of mothers around the world have embarked on a journey of parenting in the world as it was.
They now need to prepare to bring a life into the world as it has become - a world in which expectant
mothers are afraid to go to health centers because of fear of being infected or because of tense health
services and emergency care barriers to be missed, ”he said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF executive director.
"It's hard to imagine how much the coronavirus pandemic has reshaped maternity."
Ahead of Mother’s Day, which was recognized in over 128 countries in May, UNICEF warns that
COVID-19 containment measures can disrupt life-saving health services such as obstetrics and put
millions of pregnant mothers and their babies at high risk.
Countries with the highest number of births expected in the nine months since the pandemic declaration
are: India (20.1 million), China (13.5 million), Nigeria (6.4 million), Pakistan (5 million) and Indonesia (4
million). Most of these countries had high newborn mortality rates prior to the pandemic and can increase
these levels under COVID-19 conditions.
More affluent countries are also affected by this crisis. In the United States, the sixth highest country in
terms of expected number of births, more than 3.3 million babies are expected to be born between March
11 and December 16. In New York, authorities are considering alternative birth centers because many
pregnant women are concerned about hospital birth.
UNICEF warns that while pregnant mothers are proven to be no more affected by COVID-19 than others,
countries must ensure that they continue to have access to prenatal, childbirth and postnatal services. Sick
newborn babies also need emergency services because they are at high risk of death. New families need
support to start breastfeeding and receive medication, vaccines, and nutrition to keep their babies healthy.
On behalf of mothers worldwide, UNICEF is urging governments and healthcare providers to save lives
in the coming months by addressing these issues:
• Issue to support pregnant women with screening, qualified maternity care, aftercare, and care related to
COVID-19 as needed;
• Obstacle to ensure that health workers are provided with the necessary personal protective equipment
and receive priority testing and vaccination as soon as a COVID 19 vaccine is available so that it can
provide high quality care to all pregnant women and newborns during the pandemic;
• Risk to ensure that all infection prevention and control measures in healthcare facilities are carried out
during and immediately after birth;
• Risk to allow healthcare workers to reach pregnant women and young mothers through home visits,
encourage women in remote areas to use maternity homes, and use mobile health strategies for
teleconsultations;
• Lack of training, protecting and equipping healthcare workers with clean birth kits for home births
where healthcare facilities are closed;
• Lack of resources for life saving services and supplies for maternal and child health.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, an estimated 2.8 million pregnant women and newborns died every
year, or one every 11 seconds, mostly for avoidable reasons.
Risks:
In general, pregnant women do not appear to be more risky than healthy adults to develop a more serious
illness or complication if they are affected by a coronavirus. Most often, only mild to moderate flu-like
symptoms occur, e.g. If you are pregnant and your flu-like symptoms worsen, it may mean that your
breast infection is getting more serious and you may need to be hospitalized. If you develop more severe
symptoms or your recovery is delayed, contact a hospital near you immediately.
As it is a very new virus, we do not have all the information and evidence available yet. There is no
evidence of an increased risk of miscarriage when exposed to COVID-19. There is also no evidence of
vertical transmission that indicates the ability of the virus to pass on to your unborn baby during
pregnancy. In a study of nine pregnant women in China who tested positive for COVID-19, all nine
babies tested negative for the virus and were overall healthy. A pregnant woman in London tested
positive for coronavirus, and later her newborn also tested positive. However, it is unclear whether the
baby was infected with the viral infection in the uterus or shortly after birth. Expert opinion is that the
baby is unlikely to be exposed during pregnancy and, as a result, the baby is unlikely to have
developmental disorders. There is currently no new evidence to suggest otherwise.
It is not yet known whether pregnant women are more susceptible to infection with COVID-19 than the
normal population. Nevertheless, pregnant women are advised to reduce social contact with social
distance. It is an established fact that in some women pregnancy changes the way the body fights some
viral infections. For this reason, although the evidence for coronavirus is still insufficient, pregnant
women are advised to be particularly careful during this pandemic.
The benefits of breastfeeding your child far outweigh the risk of transmission of the coronavirus through
breast milk. The main risk with breastfeeding is the close contact between you and your baby, which
carries the risk of a droplet infection that can spread to the baby when breathing. Discuss the risks and
benefits with your doctor and family before making a decision. Here are a few steps to take to minimize
the risk of transmission:
Wash your hands before feeding or touching the baby, breast pump or bottles
Avoid coughing or sneezing while feeding
Wear a face mask when feeding, if available.
If you are using a breast pump, follow the instructions for proper cleaning and sterilization.
Ask one of your healthy family members to feed your baby when expressing milk.
External sources:
https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/shalev.htm
https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/fwcw.htm
https://www.unfpa.org/icpd
https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/women/wrgs/pages/healthrights.aspx
https://www.who.int/topics/womens_health/en/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/00365513.2014.936672
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25083885/
https://unfoundation.org/features/bcun/newsletter/womens-health-post2015.pdf
https://www2.unwomen.org/~/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/csw/57/csw57-
agreedconclusions-a4-en.pdf?v=1&d=20140917T100700
https://www.narayanahealth.org/blog/covid-19-and-pregnancy-what-are-the-risks/
https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/emergencies/COVID-19-SRH/en/
https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/pregnant-mothers-and-babies-born-during-covid-19-pandemic-
threatened-strained-health