Promoting the welfare and protecting the development of children is one of the greatest tasks in nation building. It is an individual, national and international responsibility. But it cannot be accomplished by providing basic services alone. There is also the need to provide every family with basic information on how to protect the health and enhance the growth of children.
It is now known that the major threats to children's lives can be minimized, in most cases, by taking inexpensive measures such as immunization, breastfeeding, oral rehydration therapy, timing births, safe motherhood, child growth monitoring and home hygiene. The challenge therefore, is to put today's knowledge about these techniques at the disposal of the great majority. The task is to empower individuals, families and communities in protecting the lives and health of their children by methods the can act on now and at a cost they can afford.
Every week, a quarter of a million children die in the developing countries. Many more live on with ill health and poor growth.
A fundamental cause of this tragedy is poverty. Another fundamental cause is that today's knowledge about protecting the health and growth of children has not yet been put at the disposal of the majority. Today, there is a world-wide scientific consensus on essential child health information. It is information which can help to save the lives of millions of children. It is information which can drastically reduce malnutrition and help to protect the healthy growth of the next generation. It is information which almost all parents can put into practice, in some degree, at very low cost. It is therefore, information to which families have a right.
But the most difficult question remains. How can this information be communicated? How can it become part of the basic stock of child-care knowledge in every family and every community?
Experience in all countries has shown that only frequent, varied repetition of new information, from all sides and over many years, can truly succeed in putting new health knowledge at the disposal of the majority.
TOP TEN FACTS FOR LIFE
The following ten messages summarize the child health knowledge:
ONE: The health of both women and children can be significantly improved by spacing births at two years apart, avoiding pregnancies before the age of 18, and by limiting the total number of pregnancies to four.
TWO: To reduce the dangers of childbearing, all pregnant women should go to a health worker for pre-natal care and all births should be assisted by a trained person.
THREE: For the first few months of a baby's life, breast milk alone is the best possible food and drink. Infants need other foods, in addition to breastmilk, when they are six months old.
FOUR: children under three have special feeding needs. They need to eat five or six times a day and their food should be specially enriched by adding mashed vegetables and small amounts of fats and oils.
FIVE: Diarrhea can kill by draining too much liquid from a child's body. So the child with diarrhea must be given plenty of the right liquids to drink. If the illness is more serious than usual, the child needs help from a health worker - and a special drink called Oral Rehydration Solution. A child with diarrhea also need food to make a good recovery.
SIX: Immunization protects agains several diseases which can cause a poor growth, disability, and death. All immunizations should be completed in the first year of the child's life. Every woman of child-bearing age should be immunized against tetanus.
SEVEN: Most cough and colds will get better on their own. But if a child with a cough is breathing much more rapidly than normal, then the child is seriously ill and it is essential to go to a health center quickly. A child with a cough or cold should eat and drink plenty of liquids.
EIGHT: Many illnesses are caused because germs enter the mouth. This can be prevented by using latrines; by washing hands with soap and water after using the latrine and before handling food; by keeping food and water clean; and by boiling water if it is not from a piped supply.
NINE: Illnesses hold back a child's growth. After an illness, a child needs an extra meal every day for a week to make up for the growth lost.
TEN: Children between the ages of six months and three years should be weighed every month. If there is no gain in weight for two months, something is wrong.
TIMING BIRTHS
What every family and community has a right to know about Timing Births.
It is not widely known that birth spacing is one of the most powerful ways of improving the health of women and children. Birth which are "too many or too close" or to women who are below 18 or past 35 years old are responsible for approximately one third of all infant deaths worldwide.
Becoming pregnant before the age of 18, or after the age of 35, increases the health risks for both mother and child.
For health reasons alone, no girl should become pregnant before the age of 18. A woman is not physically ready to begin bearing children until she is about eighteen years of age. Babies born to women younger than eighteen are more likely to be born too early and weigh too little at birth. Such babies are much more likely to die in the first year of life. The risks to the mother's own health are also greater.
All girls should be allowed the time to become women before becoming mothers. In societies where many girls marry at an early age, couples should delay the first pregnancy until at least the age 18.
After the age of 35, the health risks of pregnancy and childbirth begin to increase again. If a woman is over the age of 35, and has had four or more previous pregnancies, then another pregnancy is a serious risk to her own health and that of her unborn child.
The risk of death for young children is increased by about 50% if the space between birth is less than two years.
For the health of both women and children, parents should wait until their youngest child is at least two years old before having another baby. Children born too close together do not usually develop, physically or mentally, as well as children born at least two years apart.
One of the greatest threats to the health and growth of child under the age of two is the birth of a new baby. Breastfeeding stops too suddenly, and the mother has less time to prepare the special foods as young child needs. Also, she may not be able to give the older child the care and attention he or she needs, especially during illness. As a result, the child often fails to grow and develop properly.
A woman's body needs two years to recover fully from pregnancy and childbirth. The risk to the mother's health is therefore greater if the next birth follows too closely upon the last. The mother needs to give herself time to get her strength and energy back before she becomes pregnant again.
If a woman becomes pregnant before she is fully recovered from bearing a previous child, there is a higher chance that her new baby will be born too early and too light in weight. Low-birthweight babies are less likely to grow well, more likely to fall ill and be malnourished and four times more likely to die in the first year of life than babies of normal weight.
Having more than four children increases the health risks of pregnancy. After a woman has had four children, further pregnancies bring greater risks to the life and health of both mother and child. Especially if the previous births have not been spaced more than two years apart, a woman's body can easily become exhausted by repeated pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and looking after small children. Further pregnancies usually mean that her own health begins to suffer.
After four pregnancies, there is an increased risk of serious health problems such as anemia or thin blood, and hemorrhage ( heavy loss of blood ). The risk of giving birth to babies with disabilities, or with low birth weight, also increases after four pregnancies and after the age of 35.
Family planning gives couples the choice when to begin having children, how many to have, how far apart to have them, and when to stop.
Most health services can give advice on spacing births. Couples should be made aware of the importance and significance of spacing births being a vital component of comprehensive maternal and child health.
Spacing child at least two years apart, and avoiding pregnancies before the age of 18 and after the age of 35, can help ensure that each baby is born healthy and strong.
Family planning enables couples to effectively practice responsible parenthood in the light of their own consciense, values and therefore are aware of te choices, within accepted norms and methods, for the management of the variables that affect family size, fertility, and maternal and child health.
When pregnancies are practically spaced at least 2 years apart, parents can have more time and savings that could help maintain harmony in the home.
WOMEN'S WORK
Putting today's essential health knowledge into practice will be seen by many as "women's work". But women already have work. They already grow most of the developing world's food, market of most of its crops. fetch most of its water, collect most of its fuel, feed most of its animals, weed most of its field.
And when their work outside the home is done, they light the Third World's fires, cooks its meals, clean its compounds, wash its clothes, shop for its needs, and look after its old and its ill. And they bear and care for its children. the multiple burdens of womanhood are too much.
And the greatest communications challenge of all is the challenge of communicating the idea that the time has come, in all countries, for men to share more fully in that most difficult and important of all tasks-protecting the lives and the health and the growth of their children.
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