Women being the key players in child care and development have resulted to joining the labor force because of the financial pressure facing families and changes in societal roles for the female gender. However no matter what the reason is, it is affecting today’s child development enormously, this is because children have social needs that have to be met and this can be best done by a parent and not a day care program or a nanny as that is the system currently.
Parental employment has led to children being enrolled to schools before they are ready for it and due to this many of them get discouraged and disoriented because of the school system and hence drop out at an early stage.
If they do not get encouragement or support to go back to school they grow into adulthood where they begin a life of struggling in order to survive trough any means hence, all the vices characterizing today’s society. Children lacking parental attention tend to take drugs in their adulthood because they feel desperate and unwanted hence seeking refuge in narcotics.
This children also often become very defiant and antisocial, they consider adult advice as boring and mere talk and,they also grow to be very distant from their parents some even disown them completely. Forming any kind of relationship with other people also becomes difficult because they have not been taught to do so in childhood.
Jacqui (1997) explains that “infant mortality is the number of deaths of children below one year for every a 1000 live births and the type of death could be neonatal, that is, death before 29 days after birth and post neonatal after the 29 days.”
This division is due to the difference in cause of death at these ages. The rate of deaths has been high in the past but it has gradually reduced due to improvement of basic health, improved technology and more trained personnel in the medical field.
The major cause of death has been dehydration from diarrhea; however this has reduced due to the education of mothers about the oral rehydration solution. Currently pneumonia is the most common cause of infant death, other major causes of death are: Congenital defects
These are birth defects and they occur while the fetus is still in the womb, they affect the looks or the functioning of the body. Physical defects are such as cleft lip and palates while functional defects involve the body organs such as the; heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and there are also chromosomal abnormalities like Down’s syndrome, those that are very severe lead to infant death.
Preterm Birth and Low Birth Weight-Preterm birth is birth before the required period of pregnancy is over that is 37 weeks while low birth weight is weight below 2.5 kilogram’s or 2500 grams. Regardless of the length of pregnancy, also referred to as short conception phase, is a span of pregnancy less than 38 weeks. In 2005 babies the number if infant deaths due to these two factors were 4698.
The WHO noted that “Maternal difficulties of Pregnancy-These include preeclampsia, placenta previa, incompetent cervix, umbilical cord and placenta complications among many others; they arise during pregnancy and lead to infant death especially at the time of birth.” Other causes of infant death include malaria, malnutrition, infections, child abuse, abandonment, sexually transmitted diseases and sudden infant death syndrome” (Wegman, 2001).
In developed countries the major cause of death is low birth weight which can be improved through prenatal care to encourage mothers to feed well because most fear gaining weight due to the pregnancy. In developing countries the major problems are diarrhea, infectious diseases and HIV/Aids, they can control this by improving basic health care and providing health education to mothers.
Reference List
Jacqui, W. (1997). Baby Milk Companies Accused of Breaching Marketing Code. British Medical Journal, pg. 167–169. Web.
Wegman, M. E. (2001). Infant Mortality in the 20th Century, Dramatic but Uneven Progress. Journal of Nutrition, pg. 131. Web.