This life-cycle approach extends beyond women's reproductive role to encompass women's health at every stage and in every aspect of their lives. This life-cycle approach extends beyond women's reproductive role to encompass women's health at every stage and in every aspect of their lives. Accompanied by considerable hormonal changes, the life stages of women are generally divided into infancy, puberty, reproductive age, climacteric period, and elderly years, in addition to pregnancy and delivery that are generally included as the life events unique to women

1. Women's health …..a life cycle
approach
name: DR. Zabihullah niazi
MPH(MNCH),health specialist ,pediatrician
Date:26/5/2202
time : 11:00 am

2. OUTLINE:
• INTRODUCTION
• SOCIAL AND CULTURAL FACTORS THAT IMPACT WOMEN’S HEALTH
• WHY IS WOMEN'S HEALTH SO IMPORTANT?
• LIFE-COURSE APPROACH
• STAGES IN LIFE CYCLE
• CONCLUSION

3. INTRODUCTION
• Despite important global progress, women’s
health and, in particular, sexual and reproductive
health, are still very much a part of the unfinished
agenda.
• Indeed, girls and women face health challenges
that have not yet been fully addressed.
• Millions of women lack access to basic life-
saving services and hundreds of thousands of
women suffer death or disability every year from
preventable diseases and complications of
pregnancy.

4. Every 2 minutes a woman unnecessarily dies of
preventable pregnancy-related complications, leaving
behind impoverished orphans, struggling families,
and devastated communities

5. Around the world, 200 million
adolescent girls and women do not
have access to safe and effective
contraception —the fundamental tool
for controlling their reproductive lives.

6. INTRODUCTION
Females still struggle with
unwanted pregnancy
maternal morbidity and mortality
reproductive cancers
unsafe abortion

7. INTRODUCTION
• Along with the biological risks, women and
girls are affected by gender and other social
inequalities, which are the underlying
conditions for pervasive problems such as
gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS
epidemic.
• At later stages of life, women receive poorer
and later care for problems such as
cardiovascular disease and lung cancer.

8. INTRODUCTION
• Women are, simultaneously, consumers and
producers of health care .
• They (Mothers, sisters, and grandmothers
)are the primary caretakers in their
households, and female community workers
and midwives serve people who otherwise
lack access to health services because they
live in remote areas or cannot afford care.

9. INTRODUCTION
• Women often are the most active members of
community health committees and other
forms of organization of civil society.
• They also represent a majority in the health
professions, make key contributions to he
health sciences and academia, and strategically
set priorities and allocate health care funding
as decision makers around the globe.
• Gender-related barriers and lack of enabling
policies prevent women from achieving their
full potential in the health workforce.

10. Social and Cultural factors that impact
women’s health
• gender as a social determinant of health.
• While women’s health is affected by their
biology, it is also affected by their social
conditions, such as poverty, employment, and
family responsibilities, and these aspects
should not be overshadowed.
• Women have traditionally been disadvantaged
in terms of economic and social status and
power, which in turn reduces their access to
the necessities of life including health care

11. • Despite recent improvements in western nations,
women remain disadvantaged with respect to
men. The gender gap in health is even more
acute in developing countries where women are
relatively more disadvantaged.
• In addition to gender inequity, there remain
specific disease processes uniquely associated
with being a woman which create specific
challenges in both prevention and health care.

12. Why is women's health so important?
Women represent the cornerstone of a family's
overall health, ensuring they have access to
quality care also can lead to improved health
for children and families.

13. March 8
Organizations large and small come together to
show women just how valuable they are in
today's society.
The day aims to highlight the achievements
made by women across the globe. The day also
ensures to create awareness among women in
order for them to take their stand and fight
against gender discrimination in society.

14. LIFE CYCLE
Human beings are born as infants and slowly go
through stages before reaching adulthood.
These stages are called a life cycle.
“A life cycle is defined as the developmental
stages that occur during an organism's lifetime.
A life cycle ends when an organism dies”

17. Life-course approach
a life-course approach focuses on the
potential for early intervention to reduce
disease risk or severity in later life

18. Life-course approach
• A holistic, comprehensive and life-course
approach beyond reproductive health is needed
to achieve better health of women – starting
from pregnancy and maintained throughout the
newborn, childhood, adolescence and aging
period.
• Women must be empowered to take care of their
health

19. The life cycle approach to women’s
health
• It is a concept that emphasizes on prevention
and early intervention at every stage of life (
intrauterine period, early childhood,
adolescence, youth, middle age and old age).
• Outcome at one point in the life cycle might
be a determinant for health elsewhere further
in the cycle.

20. Example 1
a link between early life factors and
early menopause;
• not having been breastfed
• poor early growth,
• poor socioeconomic conditions
• lower childhood cognitive abilities
• parental divorce in childhood
• 0nly cigarette smoking and nulliparity
have consistently been related to an
earlier menopause

21. Example 2
early life factors to be associated with
early menarche
• faster growth rates during childhood
• higher childhood socioeconomic position
• family conflict
• parental divorce
• presence of a stepfather
• exposure to stressors such as war shortly
before menarche

22. Example 3
a woman's reproductive health is a
sentinel of chronic disease in later life
• It has long been acknowledged that earlier
menarche, later menopause and other
reproductive characteristics, for example
nulliparity, are associated with increased risk of
some cancers, including breast and endometrial

23. Example 4
use of folic acid preconception and in
early pregnancy
• Neural tube defects are absent

24. Example 5
immunization with tetnanus toxoid

25. STAGES IN LIFE CYCLE
•Infancy and childhood (0-9 years)
•Adolescence (10-19 years)
•Reproductive age/period (15-45/49 years)
•Post-reproductive age (45+ years, including old
age-60+ years)

26. Infancy & childhood (0-9 yrs)
•Education
•Genital mutilation (FGM)
•Discriminatory nutrition
•Discriminatory health care

27. Adolescents (10-19 yrs)
•Physiological changes
in the body
•Child labour/work
•Early marriage
•Early child bearing
•Abortion
•Infection(disease,
STIs/AIDs)
•Aggression
•Violence/abuse
•Gender
discrimination

28. Reproductive period (15-45/49 yrs)
•Marriage –forced
•Unplanned
pregnancy
•Diseases, STIs/AIDs
•Abortion, infertility
•Pregnancy
complications
•Malnutrition, growth
•Child bearing and
rearing
•Contraception
•Abuse and violence
(domestic, outside
home…)

29. Post-Reproductive years (45+ yrs.)
•Cardio-vascular diseases •Gynecological cancers
•Osteoporosis/Osteoarthritis •Diabetes
•Cancers •Sexual dysfunction
•Sub-fertility/infertility •Abuse, violence
•STD/HIV •Menopause

30. SUMMARY
The health of families and communities are no
doubt, tied to the health of women.
“Healthy Women, Healthy World” (empowering
women as drivers of change)`