Parteneri
3. Prioritary concepts and trends
3. Prioritary concepts and trends
Over the past several years the definitions of reproductive health, sexual health and safe motherhood have been adopted through an international consensus.
The following relevant areas for Moldovan reproductive health have been identified during the strategic planning process and consultation with diverse national experts:
- family planning – the right to carry out the reproductive function. Contraceptive options;
- safe motherhood – preconception care. Prenatal diagnosis and care. Prevention of newborns with congenital anomalies;
- teenagers and youth – reproductive and sexual health of teenagers and youth. School education for development of life skills;
- infections of the reproductive tract – prevention and management of the sexually transmitted infections and the HIV/AIDS infection. Diagnosis and treatment services;
- abortion – safe abortion. Pregnancy termination services. Post-abortion counseling;
- sterility – infertility prevention. Sterility diagnosis and treatment services;
- domestic violence and sexual abuse – domestic violence and sexual abuse prevention and management;
- trafficking in human beings – prevention of trafficking in human beings;
- genital and breast cancer – early diagnosis and management;
- the elderly – sexual health of the elderly. Counseling services;
- men – men’s sexual and reproductive health.
Reproductive health is a state of complete physical, mental and social welfare that can not be defined only by the absence of disease or infirmity and is related to everything connected to the reproductive system, its functions and the processes that take place during the entire life. The reproductive health involves the possibility of people to be responsible, have and enjoy safe sex, as well as to reproduce and have the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do it. This condition implies the women’s and men’s right to be informed and to have free access to safe, cheap and acceptable family planning methods, just as well to other fertility control methods, at the same time it implies free access to health services that would ensure the safety for women during pregnancy and delivery, providing the couples with the best chances of having healthy children.
The constitutive parts of the reproductive health definition are: sexual health (responsible, enjoyable and safe sexual life), family planning (freedom of reproduction, access to information, methods and services) and safe motherhood (pregnancy and delivery in safe conditions, healthy children).
Sexual health represents a state of physical, emotional, mental and social welfare in sexuality and it doesn’t only consist of the absence of disease, dysfunctions or infirmity. Sexual health allows achieving a joyful sexual life in safe conditions. It is based on a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relations, without coercion, discrimination or violence (WHO/EUR, WHO/HQ, Geneva and the World Organization for Sexology, November, 2002).
Safe motherhood implies: evaluation, care and elimination of preconception risks; prevention of unwanted or high-risk pregnancies; avoiding illegal or unsafe abortions; decreasing the maternal death rate and morbidity and improving the newborns’ health; access to information and qualified assistance during the gestation, intranatal, and postnatal periods (WHO, 1994).