What is reproductive health ? Reproductive Health

What is reproductive health ?

Reproductive health is the state of health affected by one's reproductive processes and phenomenon. Reproductive health declines due to unsafe sex behaviors and lack of sex education. Reproductive health education is a branch of sex education. It gives knowledge and develops positive attitude and behavior towards sexual relation, reproductive phenomenon and processes. The concept of sex education was first introduced from the Cairo conference on "Population and Development" (ICPD) in 1994 AD. The reproductive health is also related to mental, social, and physical aspects of human life. World Health Organization has defined reproductive health as follows;

"Reproductive health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of diseases or infirmities in all the matters related to reproductive system and to its functions and processes. "

The above definition mainly focuses on the following:

1. Reproductive health refers to the condition of mental alertness and being free from any kinds of mental tension.
2. It focuses on the complete physical condition in the body. The outlook, height and weight should be well balanced. The body must be free from diseases and infirmities to have sound reproductive health.
3. It focuses on social well-being. There must be appropriate sex and reproductive characteristics of social adjustment.
4. Reproductive education is closely related to sex education. Reproductive education makes people aware of the appropriate age at marriage, problems of pregnancy and child birth, unsafe sex behaviors, and prevention from sexually transmitted diseases.

Aspects of Reproductive Health

a) Planning of the family and family planning

Planning of the family includes all the family affairs related to the factors required to run the family smoothly. The family matters like proper education to the children, and management of income and expenditure in the family, saving, and to make family ready to tackle against different problematic situations in the family. The family planning is primarily related to limit family size by giving limited number of births with the help of contraceptive device and proper birth spacing.

b) Safe motherhood

It is the process of protecting prenatal, neonatal and postnatal mother from problematic pregnancy, complicated pregnancy, and problems of breastfeeding periods. Reproductive education includes this as an important aspect. In 2002, the maternal mortality rate was 400 per one lakh in developing countries whereas the data was only 21 per lakh in developed countries. This data reflects the poor situation of mothers in developing countries like Nepal. For Nepal , this rate was 850 per lakh in 1990 AD but in 2010 AD , this number was significantly decreased to 229 per lakh. Nepal was honoured at the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) review summit for making significant progress in decreasing maternal mortality rate. Data shows that there are deaths of about five lakh of women due to complicated pregnancy and delivery in the world every year. Main causes of maternal death are early marriage, less birth spacing, and delivery of many children. Due to the lack of knowledge and awareness about the facts of the causes of maternal death, many mothers are still dying due to minor problems which  can be solved easily with minor awareness and medical assistance.

c) Infant and child health care

Infants are the children below one year of age; and the children are regarded as the people below five years of age. Children and infants are vulnerable to health problem because of their innocence and lack of capacity to tackle against various adverse circumstances in life. There were deaths of 92 infants per1000 live births during the period of 1970 to 1975 A.D.  This figure was 48 per thousand in 2006 AD  and it has  been reduced to 46 per 1000 live births in 2011 AD according to the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) conducted by Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) . This decline certainly proves the positive changes in child health care in Nepal. There must be increased effort to reduce  this figure in the days to come.

d) Control of unsafe abortion and its consequences

Abortion is the process of terminating the life of foetus  before its maturity . In about 90% countries of the world, there are legal provisions for abortion if the pregnancy is problematic from the point of view of the mother's and foetus' health.  It is found by different surveys conducted in different countries that there are still many evidences of unsafe abortion in spite of legal provision of  safe abortion. If continuation of the pregnancy is harmful, it is better to abort the foetus for safe life of the mother. Recent amendment of laws of Nepal has kept some legal provisions to legalize abortion in limited and emergency cases.

e)   HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases of the reproductive tract

There is high chance of reproductive tract infection in the pregnancy period of females. Sexually transmitted diseases can be prevented by safe sexual relationships among the sex partners. Sex education gives knowledge and practical skills to be safe from such venereal diseases. Therefore, there must be proper sex education for all.

f) Prevention and treatment of infertility

The reproductive health does not deal only with birth controls and limiting family size, but also about the treatment and prevention of infertility. The couples who do not have children can get proper solutions and help available at different health centres, health posts, clinics, hospitals, etc.

g) Reproductive health of adolescents

The reproductive health education raises knowledge, attitude, and behavior regarding the reproductive health of adolescents. There are many physical and mental changes causes curiosity in the adolescence. Such curiosity and queries are answered by the reproductive health  education. It gives knowledge about age at marriage and safe sexual relationship in adolescences.

h) Reproductive health problems of elderly peop

After about 49 years of age, females lose the fecundity polewer. Cessation of fecundity power is indicted  by menopause in females. At this stage, there  may be irregular menstruation, physical tiredness and fatigue,  breast cancer, cervical cancer, etc. in females. They must know about the general symptoms and problems at this stage. Reproductive health education gives information and knowledge regarding the changes in sex characteristics at old age.

 Topics  covered: What is reproductive health, reproductive health, define reproductive health, aspects of reproductive health, what are the different aspects of reproductive health, define reproductive health according to WHO