- How may have Andrea’s race and culture played a role in her having a low birth weight baby?
Race discrimination is a challenge that faces many African Americans in various elements, leading to a huge negative impact on their life. It is essential to understand the challenges faced, especially in the healthcare system and the quality of care offered to the population. In most cases, the quality of care offered to people of colour is the poorest since it entails minimal assessment and analysis of the challenges facing the patient, especially mental health. Mental health due to race discrimination is a challenge that leads to poor health, an aspect that can be linked to Andreas’ dilemma and her baby. When a pregnant woman is faced with mental health due to challenges faced in life like depression and anxiety, the infant is affected since they are dependent on the mother. The aspect of mental health challenge could be the reason why Andrea gave birth to a low-birthweight baby.
On the other hand, poor health services and guidelines on how to manage medication and workload at a law firm where she was an employee could be another aspect that facilitated the birth of a low-weight child. Some medications require a patient to have bed rest or consume a specific balanced diet when pregnant to improve the health of the baby. Due to race discrimination, Andrea could be faced with poor counselling on diet and medication measures, leading to nutrition challenges that facilitated the negative impact on the baby’s weight element. At the workplace, she could be facing a heavy workload that leads to stress and colour discrimination, increasing the level of challenges in her life while pregnant. For an African American woman, discrimination is the greatest challenge, and its fruits are anxiety, depression and poor health, impacting the 7unborn baby negatively mainly by being underweight.
- Are there any culture-specific protective factors that may have helped Andrea cope with the racism she faced?
Women of color face many challenges in the home setting and at the workplace. The color culture is an aspect that facilitates some of the challenges they face, especially in the workplace. It is the role of an individual to ensure that they build personal mechanisms to cope with the hardships they face in life to lower the level of racism in society and the workplace as well. For a woman who fails to meet her obligations as a wife or mother at the workplace, the level of discrimination increases, leading to more hardship experiences throughout the day. It is their role to work hard at the workplace regardless of the workload to ensure that they achieve the assigned obligations and tasks on time to avoid criticism and discrimination. On the other hand, it is their role to provide home services to their husbands and, prepare meals for the children and prepare them for the following day, especially for the children attending school. These obligations faced by women help them in coping with racism since they offer no room to show disparities in their obligations as women and people of color.
Racism is a challenge that requires effective strategies in society and the workplace for its elimination since it impacts many lives mentally and physically. In healthcare organizations, its elimination helps in improving the quality and performance of care amongst patients. Enlightening individuals on solidarity and helping each other regardless of color, race, religion or gender will help in improving individual health and personal relationships with each other.
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