Family Physician Role

Chapter IV

Role of Family Physician in Prevention of IDA during Pregnancy

Family Medicine Family medicine is the medical specialty that provides continuing and comprehensive health care for the individual and the family. It is the specialty in breadth that integrates the biologic, clinical, and behavioral sciences. The scope of family medicine encompasses all ages, genders, each organ system, and every disease entity.

Family Physician The family physician is a physician who is educated and trained in the discipline of family medicine. Family physicians possess distinct attitudes, skills, and knowledge that qualify them to provide continuing and comprehensive medical care, health maintenance, and preventive services to each member

It can be, but is not always, cost saving for society. Primary prevention of IDA includes health education programs about the significance of IDA, risk factors, causes, symptoms and signs, consequences, the importance of investigation, and the importance of providing iron during pregnancy in form of foods and supplementation that is necessary in developing countries. Health education aim at addressing these issues in order to reduce IDA and improve Hb and iron levels in pregnant women. WHO defines health education as any combination of learning experiences designed to help individuals and communities improve their health, by increasing their knowledge or influencing their attitudes. Health education is also defined as the development of individual, group, institutional, community and systemic strategies to improve health knowledge, attitudes, skills and behavior. The purpose of health education is to positively influence the health behavior of individuals and communities as well as the living and working conditions that influence their

However, antenatal supplementation as a direct cause of this haemoconcentration has not been established. Many women develop IDA in spite of the well established iron supplementation programs. The low effectiveness of these programs has been attributed to lack of compliance that is mainly due to the troublesome GIT side effects, improper storage of tablets compromising their pharmacokinetics, poor motivation, lack of awareness of their value, dietary habits and inappropriate methods of taking the oral iron supplements. Simple educational interventions can improve the effectiveness of the antenatal iron supplementation programs. If GIT side effects occur, the dose of elemental iron should be reduced. The addition of antihelminthic medications in appropriately selected populations has also been shown to improve the effectiveness of antenatal oral iron supplementation.

Secondary