Saturday, December 30, 2006

Why fear Pregnancy more than HIV-AIDS?

By: Julia Jones
 
It is a great concern to fear pregnancy as it is associated with complications and problems when proper care is not taken. Women who belong to the poor countries are often denied the very basics human rights such as equality, education, health care and economic security. They do cannot protect them from unwanted continuous pregnancies.

The trend of early marriages is still prevalent in many parts of the world. In many developing countries more than 20% women give birth before the age of 18 while in many other countries more than half of the young girls in their teens give birth to their first child. They are victims of physical assault in the male dominated society. This makes them more vulnerable to HIV and problems related with pregnancies. The pregnant women who are HIV infected are forced to abort the unborn child and most of the times are treated as an outcaste.

More than half of the women die of pregnancy complications every year in developing countries. It is of great concern to equally fear pregnancy as HIV-AIDS. Pregnancy at an early age is associated with many complications. There is fear of premature delivery that harms the baby. The teenage girls are not fully developed and healthy. The teenage girls are not able to take care of the babies as a grown up mother. In developed countries the teens who become parents due to unprotected sex have poor eating habits and are unable to take care of them and the child. Moreover they involve into drinking and create problems for them as the teenage mother and for the child.

In many poor countries the women feel the pressure of giving birth to a male child and as such result in getting pregnant a number of times until they give birth to a son. This is typically seen in orthodox and poor families. Getting pregnant continuously causes the women to become weak and fragile especially when no proper care is taken.
Women have complications when they get pregnant in unplanned and at an early age whether they are from a developing or developed country. Even normally women develop pregnancy complications if proper care is not taken. Every year half a million women die due to complications of pregnancy and out of these 99% deaths occur in developing countries.

In America more than 1 million teenagers become pregnant every year which is highest than any western industrialized country. This is alarming as pregnancy in teens brings down the level of education and employment opportunities.
Another great risk attached with pregnancy is the spread of infection from the mother to the baby. The virus can be transmitted to her baby during pregnancy, labor, delivery and breastfeeding. If the HIV positive woman takes the correct treatment during pregnancy then the chances of passing the virus to the baby are quite low.
Lack of proper means to prevent unintended pregnancies is a public health threat as it results in deaths of a large number of women. There is yet another factor related to pregnancy that is unwanted delivery. Such deliveries are bad for the parents as well as the child who is to be brought up. It creates a lot of psychological problems for the child. Moreover if women go for abortions then too there is a risk for the women as complications arise due to unsafe abortions.

Education associated with pregnancies should be given in underdeveloped countries and especially to teenagers in both the developed and developing countries. Knowledge should be imparted on pregnancy complications so that the risk involved in it does not arise and cause harm to both the mother and the child.

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