Family Health Issue

Social and emotional wellbeing of the Australian child/adolescent

Key Health Issue: Infant Mortality

Specific age group: it is within first year of birth compared with 1,000 live births of infants.

Purpose

The purpose of the this report is to focus on one key health issue faced by children as indicated in the Headline Indicators for children's health, development and wellbeing. This report is written to focus on the health issue and recommending appropriate nursing practices related to the issue and the impact of the family on the health of the child. The report focuses on the infant mortality as the key health issue among the children in Australia.

Introduction

Infant mortality determines the hygiene and health conditions of the country along with the effective maternal and prenatal health system. The major causes for infant mortality are the low birth weight and smoking during pregnancy. The oxygen flow is reduced to the placenta and the fetus development is exposed to various toxins. This leads to ectopic pregnancy or spontaneous abortion.

It is required that the behaviours be modified in terms of lifestyles, behaviours and conditions which directly affect the birth outcomes such as chronic illness, medical problems, smoking, poor nutrition, sustenance abuse and lack of prenatal care. The public health agencies must educate the couple and parents to improve the infant mortality rate. Health care providers, i.e. the nurses should advise the couples and parents about the common factors affecting the birth outcomes which include the drug and alcohol abuse, maternal smoking, chronic illness, medical problems, poor nutrition, insufficient prenatal care and stress. The communities, health care providers and nurses must encourage pregnant women to go for the prenatal care which will ensure a better birth outcome (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2011).

Definitions

Infant Mortality: the infant mortality can be defined as the death of children within one year after birth. The rate is to divide this number by the number of live births in a year.

Prenatal Care: it is described as the care given to the pregnant women before their infant's delivery. It is also described as the monitoring and management of patient to avoid preventions of complications during pregnancy and promotion of healthy outcomes for the mother and infant.

Background

The significance of infant mortality is to realize and identify the root causes of this issue and adopt and implement the preventive actions against this issue. This will help the reduction in the death rates of infants within the country. This will ensure a better prospect of the development of infants. This will also signify that healthy activities and behaviours are adopted by the mothers during the pregnancy period. It also signifies that the couple/parents are not deprived of any financial issue. This also reports that the majority of the mothers reside in the developed areas which have socioeconomic facilities and provisions. It is said that the importance of infant mortality is based on the causes and associations between the influencing factors on health and the status of population which ...