Aboriginal Maternal Health and Outcomes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Aboriginal Maternal Health and Outcomes - Essay Example Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have shown some improvement in healthcare practices, but the rates are still higher than non-indigenous women. The teenage mothers’ rate of birth was at 18.6% in 2010 compared to 3.4% among non-indigenous mothers. Mothers starting antenatal care at less than 14 weeks increased to 71.3% which was a good sign, but those starting the same care at less than 20 weeks also increased to 84.1% from 74.8%. These percentages are very high compared to non-indigenous percentage of 6.9% from 11.2% (Centre for Epidemiology and Evidence, 2012). This is clear evidence that antenatal care attendance is very poor. There are other high rates or figures measuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women performance and outcomes in healthcare. These are summarized in the table above.An Antenatal Strategy That Could Be Implemented To Improve Maternal and/or Fetal OutcomesThe poor outcomes can be attributed to culturally unsafe practices, and inequities in service delivery. Kildea and others (2012), evaluated the impact of antenatal care that utilized a combination of cultural practices and standard practice antenatal care, and provided recommendations on what was appropriate. In this research, there was a specialist's antenatal clinic. Since the researchers had established that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women had poor outcomes when it comes to infant mortality rates and the infants’ well-being, this antenatal clinic proved to be very beneficial.