A Maternity Support Worker Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

A Maternity Support Worker - Assignment Example A Maternity support care and the work of maternity support workers basically entail antenatal care, intrapartum care and postpartum care for women and babies. Antenatal care is care present/ occurring before birth or during pregnancy. It is an important period for future parents to seek support and advice, explore their expectations as for future parents, their fears, concerns, and questions. However, this period is characterized by depression, commonly called antenatal depression/ prenatal depression. Couples are advised and helped about their depression in antenatal classes to prepare them for the possibility of antenatal and postnatal depression. Maternity support care and the work of maternity support workers basically entail antenatal care, intrapartum care and postpartum care for women and babies. Antenatal care is care present/ occurring before birth or during pregnancy. It is an important period for future parents to seek support and advice, explore their expectations as for future parents, their fears, concerns, and questions. However, this period is characterized by depression, commonly called antenatal depression/ prenatal depression. Couples are advised and helped about their depression in antenatal classes to prepare them for the possibility of antenatal and postnatal depression. During such sessions, expectant parents are informed that antenatal and postnatal depressions can happen to any mother or father, are no one’s fault, are taught about the early signs and informed of available help. The healthcare worker in the antenatal stage monitors the women and their relations closely to identify any signs of depression knowing of the fact that most women mask those feelings. This is done for instance by asking the right questions./ antenatal depression can be a precursor to postpartum depression if not tackled. Tackling these depressions help make childbirth and early parenting easy as any stress felt by mother can have negative effects on feta l development which can injure both mother and child. Factors leading to antenatal depression may be an unplanned pregnancy, history of abuse, difficulty becoming pregnant, economic issues, family constraints, relationship with the father, and jobs and responsibilities. Some of the signs and symptoms of antenatal depression are inability to concentrate, difficulty remembering, feeling emotionally numb, sleep problems not related to pregnancy, extreme/ unending fatigue, extreme irritability, a sense of fear about everything, lack of feeding interest or desire to overfeed, feelings of failure/ guilt, persistent sadness, loss of sexual desire, weight loss or gain unrelated to pregnancy, inability to get excited about the baby and form or feel a bond with the baby and thoughts of suicide/ death.