Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

Poverty

In all countries, poverty presents a chronic stress for children and families that may interfere with successful adjustment to developmental tasks, including school achievement. Poverty is highly influence child’s development and educational outcomes beginning in the earliest years of life. Hence, children who raised in low-income families are at high risk of leaving school, social and behavioral problems, under nutrition, and well-being. Early Child Care Research Network has shown that children in chronically impoverished families have lower cognitive and academic performance and more behavior problems than children who are not exposed to poverty, partially explained by a lack of stimulating behaviors and home experiences among low-income families. It is very apparent that poverty impedes child’s learning, health, cognitive, social, and emotional development.

In my country which is Iraq, a third of Iraqis live in poverty due to wars, corruption, failing infrastructure, and high unemployment. All these factors are considering the main reasons that poverty spread in Iraq. However, these elements affects negatively on children’s development in all aspect. First, poverty increased the rate of literacy among children since many families cannot afford to send their children to school. Beside, many children lost their fathers during wars or sectarian tension, which causes children to work in streets or under any worker to getting money to support their families. In turns, children lost their chances to attain the good education that would open the gate of opportunities for them. Increasingly, children in Iraq continue to quitting school and deprive from the chance of learning and gaining different skills in school. Secondly, poverty also influences children’s overall health and decreases their chances to get the best treatment, and put them at risk of undernutrision. Generally, poverty in Iraq affects considerably and hindered child’s development from all aspect as cognitively, emotionally, and intellectually. . I remember my neighbor whose her husband has been killed during sectarian tension, she obliged to make her son who was 7 years old to quit school so as to work with his uncle, and support his family financially. Because she has only one boy and the rest are girls, so it is very hard for her to let any girls working outside especially they all young. However, I believe the consequences of poverty on child’s development are almost the same in any country, which definitely would undermine child’s learning, and all domains of his developments.

http://iq.one.un.org/Facts-and-Figures

http://www.investorsiraq.com/showthread.php?146376-Poverty-Rate-Unchanged-In-Iraq

Child development and public health

Breast-feeding is the topic that I decide to choose this week because breast-feeding is the best natural nutrition for the baby health and his   brain development. Since this week we talked about the effects of attachments on child’s growth, I considered that breast-feeding is also the main sources of strengthen the attachment bond and promote the emotional relationship with their mothers, in fact, it  highly enhancing behaviors of the infant and the intuitive  .Generally, Breast-feeding has a huge benefit on child’s life overall. What important first is that breast- feeding protect infants from getting sick, protect them from obesity, decreasing the chances of having allergies, and protect them from severe illness. In other words, it reduced risk of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) statistics reveal that every 87 death from SIDS, only 3 are breastfed. Furthermore, one large study by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences showed that children who are breastfed have a 20 percent lower risk of dying between the ages of 28 days and 1 year than children who were not breastfed, with longer breastfeeding associated with lower risk. In addition, children who are breast- feeding  are more likely to perform better at school than children who are on the  bottle feeding, basically, breast- feeding develop children’s cognitive outcomes and make them even smarter. The relationships of closeness that occur during breast-feeding tend to be very interesting experiences in child’s life that would boost his development from all aspects and affect his life in the future. However, Reports from UNICEF stated that the rates of breastfeeding in East  Asia has been dramatically declined due to the facts that women who works cannot have more time to nurse their babies, they return to work as soon as they gave birth.  According to the UNICEF report, as little as five percent of all mothers breastfeed in Thailand, while around 10 percent do so in Vietnam. In China, only 28 percent of babies are breastfed. Actually, there is a high percentage of women do not understand the long affect that would result from breast-feeding .Therefore, I believe that as educator it is also our role to educate women  about the importance of breastfeeding especially during the first sixth month of child’s life because this period of breast-feeding determine child’s health and his growth in future.

Refrences

C:\Users\AN\Desktop\Breastfeeding Benefits.htm

http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/81785/unicef-reports-declining-breastfeeding-rates-in-east-asia

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/mar/13/breastfeeding-child-brain-development

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110317141143.htm

C:\Users\AN\Desktop\How breastfeeding benefits you and your baby  BabyCenter_bc.mht

My two children birthing experience

I have two children one of them was born in my country, which is Iraq, and the second child was born In United States. When I was pregnant of my  first child, I went through a very hard time because  The situation in my country was not stable at that time,  and the violence reach its utmost, I was very stress during my pregnancy, to sleep at night is the difficult part. I was very scaring of how am going to deliver, and if the labor is going to be natural or not. My health care provider told me that my pregnancy was going well and there are no complications at all. When I completed my entire months, my doctor gave another two weeks because I did not have any contractions. Even when I passed the two weeks of my due date I did not have any sign of labour.Therfore, my doctor told me that she would induce my labor. Thus, the next day I went to the hospital, they put me under medication, and I started having contraction. Almost hour later, I was surprised by being told that I will have a surgery due to the baby position, which was not in the right way. After half an hour, I have been admitted to the surgery room and I put under complete sleeping. In fact, I cannot forget these moments and how I was very scared at that time especially the rules over there do not allowed any family member to be within the surgery room. However, when I completed the surgery, I took to another room, and I stayed in the hospital just one day in spite I had a cesarean surgery. During the whole night only one nurse came and gave me the medicine, no one check my baby health or my surgery despite the hospital was private and extremely expensive, but the care and services were very horrible.. Unfortunately, the power and the water were off at that night. I think it is a beautiful feeling to spend the night on the light of candles. In the morning, I left the hospital and for my bad luck, the elevator was out of service, and my room was in the third floor so I obliged to go down walking with the help of my sisters. I t was a horrible day for me , actually I did not enjoy these moments of having baby for the first time, I was only thinking  about who the situation went very bad . In fact, I just remember one beautiful thing during my labor that eased me, I was surrounded by all my family member whom they comfort me in this difficult journey. My two sisters stayed almost a month in my home just to take care of my baby and me because the surgery took me almost a month to recover and start walking. Thus, it is very hard to give a birth in a country where there are no services at all and no one pay attention to the importance of the human health.

My second labor was in United States and it was naturally. In spite my health provider told me from the beginning of my pregnancy that she was not sure if am going to deliver naturally because of the previous surgery, but she did all her best to help me having a natural labor. When I passed the two weeks of my due date, I also told that they would induce my labor since I did not have any contractions. When my contractions started getting very intense, I asked them to give me epidural to ease me pain, and after a couple of hours, I had my second child. I cannot imagine how it was easy and that of course due to the efforts of f my health care provider and all staff who were doing a great job and never let me alone until l gave birth. Generally, the services and care were amazing. My husband was with my in the labor room from the beginning till I deliver and that is the amazing thing that really we miss it in my country. I stayed two days in the hospital even though my labor was naturally, the nurses keep coming back and forth to make sure that both my child and me are doing well. I really enjoyed these moments of bonding with my child. If I want to mention one thing that I missed in my second delivery was the gathering of my whole family since they all back home, only my husband was with me and he is a great supporter for me during and after labor. Therefore, I think that now I do not need to make any comparison between the two labors because everything now looks very clear from my two experiences. In addition , most of  women in my country are having their labor at home because at hospitals are very expensive, and also because women are not educated enough to understanding the dangerous of having labor at home, and the consequences that might caused by having labor at home. Therefore, the mortality rate in my country is very high due to the reasons that I mentioned. Finally, I want to say that my two children are the world for me, and their smiles eased all my pain.