This week’s topic on maternal and child health got me
thinking about some options I have considered in my nursing career. I have not always been interested in
obstetric nursing, one could even say I am probably the opposite of interested
due to my faintness at seeing C-sections and general uneasiness of children. However, I am really intrigued by how much a
mother influences her child’s health both before and after actual birth.
I aim to complete my practicum with Nurse-Family
Partnership (NFP), a nurse-visit program that involves a nurse going into the
home of first-time, at-risk moms to give them care and assistance with
everything from prenatal to finishing high school. This program has been incredibly successful
for moms in the US, and after taking this course I can only speculate how
successful it would be globally. As I
was reading for this week, I read about Lay Health Workers and Community Health
Workers and thought, how awesome would it be if NFP could pair up with a global
health group to teach their program to other developing countries, using these
workers as their “nurses”?
In regards to malnutrition, I recall a story a nurse from
NFP told me once. She spoke about a
soon-to-be mom whose boyfriend had just gotten a job at Taco Bell and was able
to bring home food after closing each night.
Since the couple had limited income, they mostly ate the food he was
able to bring home. The nurse told me
that while obviously she should be only teaching about fruits &
veggies and healthy eating, she had to work with her patient from where she was. She had the boyfriend bring home a nutrition
menu from Taco Bell and helped them dissect it so that they were able to choose
the healthiest items for the pregnant patient.
I like this story because it’s very real. If we were to go into a developing country
and start teaching four fruits a day, 6 ounces of meat, etcetera ecetera, how
far would we really get? How much impact
would we have? I think it’s important as
global health professionals to work
with patients and people from where they are and make the best of it,
especially when it comes to pregnant moms.
I look forward to class discussion on Tuesday!
What a fantastic example of making the most of a tricky situation! I love that approach! Sometimes the improvements needed to ensure the health of a patient are not immediately available or accessible given the current financial/social/geographic situation, but something still needs to be done in the meantime. In pregnancy this is certainly the case. This goes along with the approach we discussed earlier in the course of working within existing frameworks to get immediate health improvements while still looking for more sustainable solutions to come down the road. And that NFP training sounds like a fascinating program Lisa, you will be excellent at it I'm sure!
ReplyDeleteLisa,
ReplyDeleteYes, I like your example. In order to affect change we have to meet people where they are and move from there. I also like the fact that you moved the situation globally and thinking bigger than our own environment. This to me is being conscious of the world around us.
When we think of all the food wasted, malnutrition seems like an easy fix. Some places are taking steps to reduce malnutrition in the US. Some states like California and Nevada have $1 healthy food stores, where all people can get fruits and vegetables for no more than $1. I went to one of these and was truly impressed. The fruit was fresh and the store was clean. They not only sold fruit and vegetables but other things as well. In terms of globally we can increase farming, by educating and providing seeds and harvesting tools so that areas that are remote could have the tools and skills necessary to sustain a healthy life. We can also work on reducing waste especially in US households, by setting up fresh food pantries where supermarkets can give food that they don't believe will sell to these pantries so that they can help those who are in need. These all take some policy change and may even need government interventions to help set up, but I believe that it is something that would be effective in hard hit communities.