Sexual and Reproductive health...
Good sexual and reproductive health is essential for women’s general health and wellbeing, it is one of the main contributors to women’s ability to make choices and decisions about their lives; including the process of considering when, or whether to consider having children.
It is important to understand that reproductive health is more than just physical wellbeing. It includes the right to healthy and respectful relationships, health services, safe and appropriate access to any needed information and advice, access to contraception and access to support regarding general women’s wellbeing-including unplanned pregnancy advice.
Different stages of life are associated with specific women’s sexual and reproductive health issues. For this article, were going to take a look at sexual and reproductive health services, looking specifically at contraception.
What is contraception?
Basically, contraception is a selection of different methods that can be used to prevent a pregnancy. Contraception works so that an egg cannot be fertilised by sperm to conceive a baby.
Pharmacist, Iftikhar Shami describes:
‘Contraception applies to the avoidance of pregnancy, but it also applies to the protection against sexually transmitted infection as well and you’ve got so many options available now especially with regards to pregnancy, you’ve got the pills, the Coyle, barriers and at the same time with regards to sexually transmitted infections barriers are known to be the most effective’.
As a society, our jobs are to educate people. School is where young people spend five out of seven days of the working week, where pressure is put on for exams, what you’re doing after school and what job you’re going to have; one place the pressure slacks is when discussing and teaching in-depth education towards sexual health.
Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t just schools to blame! This education should be an effort made by all of society. Afterall, it is a societal duty to educate?
Sex is very taboo within certain cultures and some parent feels awkward discussing it with their children. Whilst you do find reason to accept this can sometimes be the case, young people can’t be expected to go ahead into the world blinded towards the reality of what sex is and how to manage safe sex.
This is not saying that this information is not available, because you could argue it is but is a few brief classes good enough?
‘There are services, like sexual health clinics and projects that are run by local health clinics as well that give a bit more information. Particularly, about general development for young ladies in particular and all the measures and precautions that one should take in order to go through these experiences as safely, comfortably and confidently as possible.
'There are also quite a lot of counselling services available as well and as you know as a pharmacist we currently do help with services for sexual health and general advice with regards to that and stuff like contraception where pharmacists are now in a position to discuss options with patients which we can then liaise with their GP or their sexual health clinics about’.
The sex education taught within high schools tends to be less about protecting yourself from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and focuses more on the birds and the bees. With this lack of information, girls aren’t warned about the consequences of the pill, how to go about terminating a pregnancy and how to deal with certain sexually transmitted diseases; the information that would be more beneficial to know than just being broadly told about having sex.
However, there are currently practises in place to make talking to people easier; women’s health clinics, your doctor, even pharmacists are trained to give advice to those in need and to prescribe emergency hormonal contraception.
‘Local health initiatives address issues; you’ve got sexual health clinics and you’ve got your own doctor and GP practise and now you’ve also got pharmacies that do offer support with such topic. In particular, matters like contraception, sexually transmitted infections, you’ve got Khams who can help with counselling services as well that maybe needs addressed. There is always room for improvement you need to identify what they issues are, or what are the challenges that are currently being experiences by young females and reviewing and auditing these as well’.
Pharmacies are not more involved in this support as they can now offer the service of short-term supply of the contraceptive pill. It bridges the gap between emergency contraception and longer-term contraception. This lowers the risk of unplanned pregnancy. Educating girls on this properly would stop the embarrassing stigma related to getting it, as well as advice and support on other sexual or reproductive health issues.
‘You’ve also got the pharmacy, we can discuss options or different methods of contraception as well, that along with sexual health clinic who can also give more of a detailed approached to such topics”.
Access to emergency contraception from pharmacies was introduced to improve access to sexual health advice in the hopes of encouraging safer sex and reduce the number of unintended pregnancies by making it easier for people to prevent them. The service is also efficient for increasing people’s knowledge on sexually transmitted infections and if needed, pharmacies can be a place for patients to be referred to the correct service or receive the correct advice. Overall, increasing the knowledge of safer sex among young people and decreasing the embarrassment they may feel when seeking this knowledge.
‘The only advice I can say is we are professionals, our role as being professional means we remove any personal bias, any judgment, anything that may make the client feel as though they don’t feel they can openly and trustworthy come and discuss matters like these with us and obviously to respect the dignity of the individual as well’..
If you have been affected by anything spoken about, or if you are looking for further advice or information there are some useful links below!
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