Pregnancy for Public Health

This photograph was taken in the public health building at USF of a graduate student. While talking to the lady, we discovered that she had gestational diabetes which caused an increase of sugar given to the baby which in return causes her fetus to grow abnormally large. There are many factors that can create a pregnancy to become dangerous and sometimes potentially fatal considering the circumstances. SIDS, a large contributor of the death rate of babies, is sometimes easily preventable when the right precautions are taken.

For our This Is Public Health picture, we chose to take a photograph of a pregnant woman’s belly. The pregnant woman ties into one of the topics we learned about in chapter 1, the top 10 public health achievements in the 20^th century, falling under the ‘healthier mothers and babies’ and ‘family planning’ categories. This is important pertaining to public health issues because healthier babies lead to a healthier upcoming because children are the future.

Pregnant women can be a public health issue considering the caution women need to take while carrying the child, proper prenatal care is very important in order to have happy and healthy babies. People may not be aware of the importance of prenatal vitamins; however, they do supply a fetus with the nutrients it needs to thrive. In order to receive such prenatal and postnatal care, people must plan and execute doctor’s visits and keep track of the baby’s health.

Group Members: Paula Saunders, Shanique Patterson, Samantha Zarate (photographer), and Margaret Shamblin