Maternity: Stages of Growth and Development, Priority Health Needs, Teaching Strategies and Quality of Learning

This paper discusses the stages of growth and development, priority health needs, teaching strategies and the quality of learning of Fayola, a Nigerian immigrant who is 32 weeks pregnant and suffering from gestational diabetes.

Running head: MATERNITY
Maternity
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1MATERNITY
Fayola is a Nigerian immigrant who is 32 weeks pregnant. She is suffering from
gestational diabetes and is currently on diet control. Her husband is an exchange student at the
university doing graduate work in medicine. He works very long hours, leaving her alone most
of the time. Her English is not good and she is very shy. She misses her family, especially now
that she is pregnant. She is living alone for most of the time as her husband is a student at a
university studying graduation in medicine. Fayola is 32 weeks pregnant and has just been
diagnosed with gestational diabetes and is currently being diet controlled. This is her second visit
at the clinic since her diagnosis. In this paper it has been discussed about the stages of growth
and development, priority health needs, teaching strategies and the quality of learning of Fayola.
Stages of growth and development
Development of a human being is a process of physical, mental, behavioural and
emotional growth (Du 2015). This stage of the development is the important part for the
developmental psychology, which makes wide generalizations. The stages of growth and
development are
1. Infants and toddlers – 0-3years
2. Preschooler – 4-5 years
3. School going children – 6-10 years
4. Teens – 11-17
5. Adults – 18 above
According to the case study Fayola is an adult and is pregnant. At this stage she has some
specific growth and developmental theory. During this time the embryo gets fertilized and

2MATERNITY
develops into a fetus by the end of tenth week. The next period is of the development of organs;
this stage is known as gestational period.
Readiness to learn
Fayola is an immigrant of Nigeria so she had a difficulty in speaking English and also
very shy. She needs a proper training so that she can manage her emotional and physical changes
by her own (Taylor, 2015). But as she is too much shy, she generally doesn’t want to interact
with the people nor with the doctor appointed for her care.
Priority health needs
Two learning needs of Fayola are the ways so that she can take care of herself all over the
day whenever she stays alone and to learn about the amount and type of food to consume, so that
her diet can be maintained properly (Yee, Niznik & Simon, 2016).
Educational content
According to the layman’s theory, Fayola must be provided with the facility of
communication so that it becomes easy for the patient to understand the teaching process and
also can understand the words of the nutrition and the gynecologist. A care worker must be
appointed for Fayola to take care of her needs at the time her is not with him (Downing &
Hastings-Tolsma, 2016). On the other hand she must be taught about her nutrition needs so that
she can stay fit and also her diet is maintained to control her diabetes. The care worker must
check the blood sugar level of Fayola at regular intervals. This can be done by using portable
glucometers, for checking the levels of sugar in blood. This is done by the analyzing of small
amount of blood taken from the fingertip. The glucometer pricks the finger and the blood is

3MATERNITY
obtained. Then the blood sugar level is measured by the glucometer. Exercises for the diabetes
people are brisk walking, light jogging, balancing exercises and stretches. These exercises can
help the patient in controlling the diabetes.
Teaching strategies
1. Giving Fayola proper communication
2. Providing proper nutrition
To provide the communication Fayola can be provide with videos and language
translation books so that it can help her to understand the English language and becomes
compatible and acquainted to communicate with the care worker, gynecologist and the
nutritionist. For teaching about the nutrition diet she must be provided with the diet charts and
videos which will help her in learning about the food that is beneficial for her health (Macha et
al., 2014). Counseling can also be done with her so that she can understand the benefits the food
provided in her diet chart.
Evaluation of learning
After the teaching process she must be assessed that is she able to understand the
language spoken by the doctors that is English. These can be done by giving some sessions to
Fayola and then asking about what she had learnt. At that time if it was seen that she is not able
to learn properly then again another session was taken to make her understand the needs properly
(Lindqvist, 2016).
For maintaining the diet Fayola was provided with the diet chart and it was checked that
whether her diet is properly maintained or not (Steele & Layman, 2016). For checking this a

4MATERNITY
regular weight check up is done so that her weight does not increases, if her weight is increased
then it will increase the fat in the uterus which will create a problem in the proper development
in the growth of the fetus. Her blood test is to be done at regular intervals to measure the blood
sugar levels. Also the USG test is done to check the growth of the fetus (Ladkany & Layman,
2017). This is done because the glucose is continuously flowing from the mother to the baby
through the placenta. So if there is a huge flow of glucose to the fetus then it can harm the
growth of the fetus.
Conclusion
Thus from this whole concept it can be concluded that by the help of the above
mentioned teaching process and the strategies Fayola can be helped in recovering both her
loneliness and maintaining her diet so that it her pregnancy can be kept safe and the growth of
the baby is proper. Fayola must be provided with the facility of communication so that it
becomes easy for the patient to understand the teaching process and also can understand the
words of the nutrition and the gynecologist. A care worker must be appointed for Fayola to take
care of her needs at the time her is not with him. Fayola can be provide with videos and language
translation books so that it can help her to understand the English language and becomes
compatible and acquainted to communicate with the care worker, gynecologist and the
nutritionist.

5MATERNITY
References
Taylor, A. (2015). A Critical Approach to Human Growth & Development, 1366-1368.
Du, A. (2015). Human Growth and Development Considerations in Rehabilitation
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Downing, C., & Hastings-Tolsma, M. (2016). An integrative review of Albertina Sisulu and
ubuntu: Relevance to caring and nursing. health sa gesondheid, 21, 214-227.
Steele, B. J., & Layman, K. (2016). Ectopic Pregnancy After Plan B Emergency Contraceptive
Use. The Journal of emergency medicine, 50(4), 663-666.
Ladkany, D., & Layman, K. (2017). Imaging Considerations in Pregnancy. In Emergency
Department Management of Obstetric Complications (pp. 159-168). Springer International
Publishing.
Macha, S., Muyuni, M., Nkonde, S., & Faúndes, A. (2014). Increasing access to legal
termination of pregnancy and postabortion contraception at the University Teaching Hospital,
Lusaka, Zambia. International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, 126, S49-S51.
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optimizing the care of pregnant women with diabetes. American journal of perinatology, 33(13),
1242-1249.
Lindqvist, M. (2016). Experiences of counselling on physical activity during pregnancy
Gestational diabetes mellitus: screening and pregnancy outcomes (Doctoral dissertation, Umeå
universitet).