Consequences of Stressors on Children's Development

Consequences of Stress on Children’s Development

Poverty

This is a story that my daddy shared with me when I was young. He told me how when he was a young boy he did not attend school he had to work in the fields to help support the family. He said he worked doing farm work from sun up to sun down and one time he got paid with a pair of shoes that was too big for his feet. He said he was very angry about that. He said they had to walk everywhere they went. They went without a lot of things because they did not have any extra money to buy them.

My daddy was 22 when he married my mother who was 17. They lived with his mother for a while. They finally got a house of their own. My mother and father both worked while my grandmother my mother’s mom babysat.  My father got his first public job at a lumber mill where he worked during all sort of weather. My oldest sister was soon born, 18 months later another sister was born.  My mother and father saved their money and built a house I and my baby sister were born buy now. One of my father’s cousin moved in to help with keeping the children and housework while my mother continue to work outside the home.

The house did not have inside plumbing or central heat. But they had a home for their family. This is where my daddy’s story stop and mines began.  In the later years they remodeled the house and my mother lives there still.

My daddy worked hard all his live to provide a good home for his family and he did just that. We were poor but I did not know it thanks to the satisfices and hard work of my parents. My sister and I had all our needs met and some many of our wants. My dad taught himself to write his name, how to add and subtract and how to read a little.  We were born and rise in poverty but we were determine not to stay there. My daddy passed May, 2013 but his determination and strength live on in his children and grandchildren.

Poverty in South Africa

Poverty is a stressor that is apparently all over the world. It has been eighteen years since the apartheid ended in South Africa now it is said to be one of the most unequal societies in the world and it has 19 million children who bear the brunt of this disconnection (Nicholson, 2012). In South African 60% of the children cry themselves to sleep at night because of the lack of proper food (Nicholson, 2012).  Children and their families are often too poor to purchase the necessities. They live in inadequate housing, lack of clean water, lack of education and many live with their mother only.

There are many policy and programs that have been put in place to assist in this matter but as of now only a few has been successful. Children begin abandon by parents to survive the best way they can has added to the number of children in poverty. Many babies are born malnourished at birth. Education is the single most important factor in stopping the transmission of poverty from one generation to the next.

Poverty is a worldwide problem even here in the United States there are children who goes to bed hunger. We have many resources to assist families here in the United States but yet the number of families are steadily increasing.

 

 

 

Reference

Nicholson, Z., (2012). Most black SA kids live in poverty- study. www.iol.co.za/...South-africa/most-black-sa-kids-live-in-poverty-study-1.1

Child Development and Public Health

Child Development and Public Health

Breastfeeding

I chose the topic of breastfeeding. This method of feeding babies has become very popular with mothers today. I knew about breastfeeding   when I was giving birth to my children. However I always chose bottle feeding because of convinces. The benefits of breastfeeding to the baby were not expressed. My oldest daughter gave birth to a premature baby girl and of courses she had to breastfeed. My daughter also had to pump and store her milk. So I did some research on breastfeeding to see what I and my babies missed out on. Breastfeeding were not promoted back in the days the way it is now and the benefits were not explained the way they are now. .

I found out the experience of breastfeeding is special for so many reasons the bonding that take place between mother and child, the health benefits for both mother and baby, and the saving from not having to buy milk.

The first breast milk is called colostrum (liquid gold)  the thick yellow first breast milk that women makes during pregnancy and just after birth. This milk is very rich in nutrients and antibodies to protect babies.  The baby gets a small amount of colostrum at each feeding, it matches the amount his or her tiny stomach can hold. Colostrum changes into what is called mature milk. By the third to fifth day after birth, this mature breast milk has just the right amount of fat, sugar, water, and protein to help the baby continue to grow. It is a thinner type of milk than colostrum, but it provides all of the nutrients and antibodies the baby needs. Breast milk is easier for babies to digest. The protein in formula comes from cow milk and it takes longer for baby’s stomach to adjust to digesting it.

Beast milk helps babies to fight diseases. The cell, hormones, and antibodies in breast milk protect babies from many illnesses. Ear infections and diarrhea are more common in babies who are formula. Research shows breastfeeding can reduce the risk of Type 1 diabetes, childhood leukemia, and atopic dermatitis. Breastfeeding has also been shown to lower the risk of SID (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)

The physical contact the baby received during breastfeeding help the baby to feel secure, warm and comforted while the mother and child bonds. If I had to do over I would breastfeed my children for that bonding and health benefits.

 

Reference

Breastfeeding, www.womenhealth.gov

 

 

Re-Establishing a Breastfeeding Culture in South Africa

There is a hospital named Murchison Hospital in West Cape South Africa that promotes breastfeeding through a program called Baby Friendly that was establish in 1999. This program encourages mothers to breastfeed. It provides training and assistance to mother and their babies.  There circumstances in which a mother cannot breast. The high HIV positive incidence among young women has presented a serious challenge for the health workers. Women are informed and encourage to breastfeed their babies under certain condition.  The health care worker inform mothers not to mix feed their babies even when they are begin told to do so by the older women. Many women in this urban area sees bottle feeding as a status symbol.

There is a war in this area and it is over breastfeeding and bottle feeding. Many of the doctor in this area has made deals with the formulas’ makers to get there patients to use formulas but we know breast milk is more beneficial to the healthy development of the babies.

There are no nurseries at this hospital it believes in Kangaroo Mother care they want the women to know babies grow through love and breast milk. You would think everyone would promote breastfeeding because this is the best for babies but there are doctors and other who promotes formulas’ for financial gain.

                                       

                                    Reference

         Re-Establishing Breastfeeding Culture in South African

www.westerncape.gov.za/general-publication

 

 

 

Birthing Experience

Birthing Experience

The birth experience I would like to tell about happened twenty-six years ago. It started on a Friday night in April 1987.   I spend the day at my mother’s house while my husband was at work.  That evening I my mother, and two of my sister went to have a family portrait taken. When I returned my husband my two daughters and I went home. We stayed about a twenty minutes from my mother’s house.  

When we got home that night my husband decided he would work on putting up some blinds that he had supposed to have put up the week before. I was getting the girls ready for bed. I had a pain in my side I through it was happening because I had been moving around a lot that day. The pain got worst so I told my husband it was time for me to go to the hospital. He got very excited.

 While he was taking the girls next door to his cousin house to stay until my mother could get there to take them to her house. I was getting my bag that I had packed many weeks before. My husband did the funniest thing he started the car twice. He was running back and for taking the girls. Mean while my pains were getting worst. We got in to the car and my husband took off like he was in a race. I did not tell him just how much pain I was in because I wanted us to  to the hospital safely.

When we got to the hospital the doctor examine me and said they wanted to do an ultra sound because they felt two heads. I were shocked. So in all the pain I was in I had to be transfer to a stretcher to go for and ultra sound. The results of the ultra sounds came back and it was discovery that my baby was breached. The doctor had felt the baby head and bullock. The doctor said because I had two successful vaginal births he did see why I could not delivery this baby. I was in labor for 12 hour. I was in pain all night until 11:00 the next morning. I went into the labor room.  My husband went in with me. He almost fainted but it was comforting to me to have him there. He had to sit down as he watched the birth of our son. Our son was born feet first he weighed 7lbs and 4oz. They had to use forceps to help get him out. It seemed to had been a healthy birth.

A day after being release from the hospital we notice that my baby would cry every time we touched his right hip. We took him back to the hospital and discovery his right hip had been sprung during birth. We were glad it was not broken this occur because he was born breeched.

Today my son is twenty-six year old and cannot do certain movement because of his limit mobility he could not pass physical in school to play sports.

 

                                                     Birthing Experience in India

According to 2010 study by Harvard School of Public Health, 150,000 deaths could be prevented by 2015 if Indian women had access to better family planning and health care during their pregnancies and deliveries (Bhowmick, 2012).  A report done by Save the Children suggests that despite India’s booming economy the country is still one of the most high risk places in the world to give birth. India is ranked the fourth worst country among 80 less develop nations in its survey, with nearly half of all births taking place without a trained health professional.

India has been trying to improve levels of maternal health for years. There are studies that show the maternal mortality rate has dropped by 66% from 1990 to 2010. India‘s maternal mortality rate in 2010 was 200 women per every 100,000 live birth (Berger,2012). There have been many opportunities offer to assist with the improvement of maternal health for years.  India has the highest number of women death during child birth on the planet each year. This could be because of the many women in the rural or poorest areas of India who do received medical help from a qualified medical person. If basic maternity care were given many mothers and babies would survive.

I feel with the wealth India has gain in the past years some of it should be used to help improve their maternity care for many women. Making sure these women received the care they need for safe healthy deliveries.  Many women in India give birth at home with the assistance from untrained individuals. Many mother and babies lives are lost because of the condition in which delivery takes place. Women and children lives could be saved if birth were where modern equipment is used.

 

Reference

Bhoemick, N (201).” Why India Is Still One of the Most Dangerous Places to Give Birth”. TIME Magazine.