Abstract

An evaluation of my perceptions about the health and illness of the community in which I live focused on my knowledge on health problems and risks affecting vulnerable groups covering maternal and child health. The use of contraceptives for family planning and birth control methods were the critical areas of focus in the study.

Perceptions of Health and Illness

I evaluate my perceptions about the health and illness of the community in which I live based on the ethnomedicine concept, which incorporates the community’s health systems. That includes disease prevention methods, diagnosis, healing, and emergent disease prevention strategies. The potentially vulnerable groups include people from different races, religion, and ethnicity. Specialized cases can be referred to the maternal and child health among the vulnerable groups (Jacobsen, 2008). My experience reveals the detailed knowledge on the administration and the use of contraceptives and other family planning methods to prevent unwanted pregnancies, for example, abstinence from sex for both men and women for specific groups. My knowledge leads to the increased use of contraceptives such as Norplant, injections, periodic abstinence, sponge, and diaphragm with spermicide on population control. I identify the factors that affect maternal healthcare, risks, and the impact on vulnerable communities.

My experience with a maternal patient is based on observations on the positive effect imparting knowledge on maternal healthcare, instructions, and guidelines experienced by the patient and her family (Jacobsen, 2008). Due to the fact that the patient acquired the right family planning knowledge, she avoided the risk of using the wrong family planning methods. The resulting effect includes a better reproductive health, the increased number of breastfeeding mothers, and low morbidity rates. According to Jacobsen (2008), maternal and child health education increase the number of parents seeking for medication for sick children, fewer deaths among children and mothers during childbirth, and reduced pregnancy rates using protected sex.

The specific situation I involved in was to implement the reproductive maternal and child health programs that included responsible sex, save sex, freedom to decide, and access to effective health. Among them, one could mention save, reliable, and regulated choices through pregnancy and childbirth. The results show that people from Pakistan, Africa, the Caribbean, and India are significantly discriminated against in maternal and child health. The conclusion is that low parity rates were observed among the ethnic minorities. The causes cover high poverty prevalence rates, migration and racisms, illiteracy, large families, low immunization uptakes, poor sanitation, and cultural deficit models (Jacobsen, K2008).

The inequality that could be avoided or thought to be unfair or unjust based on factors such as religion, ethnicity, race, tribal minorities, refugees status, internally displaced persons, and prisoners, persons with mental illness, older persons, and physical impairments persons differed between various groups. Many religious groups, ethnic groups, tribal minorities, prisoners, and refugees lacked the provision of basic maternal health care services. The poor health services provision and inadequate maternal health education contributed to the rapid growth in population densities. However, intrauterine service devices for birth control among the groups could be avoided. That led to longer term pregnancy preventions using Norplant, injections and condoms use for long term and short term prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

In conclusion, the motivation to study the mental and ill health of the community was to discover the impact of my knowledge on the use of contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancies for vulnerable groups.

Reference

Jacobsen, K. H. (2008). Introduction to Global Health, New York, NY: Micahael Brown.