The 51% Factor: Pregnancy, Power & Health

, , , , , , , , , , ,

In the U.S. and most of the devel­oped world, approx­i­mate­ly 51% of the pop­u­la­tion is female. Most females give birth at some point in their lives, although, in any year, only about 2% of the pop­u­la­tion gives birth.

No one liv­ing on earth got here any oth­er way than ges­ta­tion, so there ought to be some pow­er attached to being part of that 51%. His­tor­i­cal­ly, it might be said that the pow­er has been mere­ly for survival…the good breed­ers sur­vived long enough to pro­duce heirs and those who lived on knew where the roots and fruit grew.

Only women can make more peo­ple with their bod­ies.

Here are some things to con­sid­er:

  • Women make peo­ple
  • Women’s health and fit­ness before preg­nan­cy affects whether the preg­nan­cy is healthy
  • Women’s health and fit­ness dur­ing preg­nan­cy affects her life­time health and that of her off­spring
  • Mater­nal sur­vival is impor­tant to off­spring well-being
  • Mater­nal health and fit­ness affects mater­nal adap­ta­tion and there­by off­spring well-being

Thus, is it not a san­guine notion that the health and sur­vival of women is crit­i­cal to the health of every­one? After all, the health of nations is asso­ci­at­ed with this slight major­i­ty of females, and the wealth of nations is asso­ci­at­ed with its health.

The good news is that peo­ple work­ing from this under­stand­ing are mak­ing some head­way around the globe. Recent­ly, the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion not­ed that mater­nal death among preg­nant and birthing women world-wide has been dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduced from the 1980’s to recent­ly. This is very good news!

Here is the inter­est­ing foot­note:  Mater­nal death in the U.S. has risen 42% in the same peri­od. While the absolute num­bers remain small, this is a dis­turb­ing pic­ture. What could be caus­ing this?

Time will tell if we can fig­ure it out and fix it. I ven­ture to sug­gest some direc­tions for con­sid­er­a­tion:

  • The ele­vat­ed cesare­an birth rate with its sequel­lae of car­dio­vas­cu­lar and immune sys­tem dis­or­ders
  • Obe­si­ty
  • Meta­bol­ic syn­dromes
  • Dia­betes
  • Heart dis­ease

Why am I hope­ful, then? I see among our cur­rent edu­cat­ed gen­er­a­tion of new moms and moms-to-be a will­ing­ness to exert their influ­ence – as breed­ers – over the health care scene. They want less tech­no­log­i­cal birth. They want sup­port. They want more infor­ma­tion. They want to be healthy. These are won­der­ful things. I salute these young women…they also make my job eas­i­er in the process.

In addi­tion, I see among young health care prac­ti­tion­ers an under­stand­ing of the val­ue of these things. Among prac­ti­tion­ers work­ing in pub­lic health clin­ics there is a sense of des­per­a­tion on the one hand that the poor and indi­gent have no capac­i­ty or will to take care of them­selves. On the oth­er hand, the first step is always edu­ca­tion and there are a lot of peo­ple work­ing on this issue.

Which brings me to the clos­ing point:  How do we bring more resources and intel­li­gence to help­ing women be healthy, pre­pare for preg­nan­cy, have healthy babies, reduce preg­nan­cy com­pli­ca­tions, and improve infant and mater­nal death rates? I, for one, will keep blog­ging on this issue. You, I hope, will vote for peo­ple who under­stand this issue. The polit­i­cal pow­er and will is in our hands.

51% of us are women…some day 51% of us can set pri­or­i­ties

FacebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmailFacebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail