Effectiveness of Planned Teaching Programme on Reproductive Health Among Adolescent Girls.

Introduction: WHO defines adolescence as the period of life between 10-19 years. It is a period of rapid physical and biological changes, which may lead to confusion, tension, frustration, and feeling of insecurity.Adolescence is a prime time for health promotion and to encourage them to establish healthy patterns of behavior that will influence their development and health in later years. Adolescents are at high risk for nutritional morbidity. It is seen that adolescent groups have negative attitude towards balanced diet and it was found that they were not aware of nutritional requirement, personal hygiene, menstrual hygiene, etc. Feeling this need a planned teaching programme (PTP) was conducted on reproductive health education to enable an adolescent girl to develop skill, competencies and ability to deal with varied aspects of adolescence and to attain a safe motherhood in future. Objective: To assess the impact of planned teaching programme on family life education. Methodology: The study sample consisted of 144 adolescent girls of a high school in Ankuli, Berhampur. A structured questionnaire was used as a tool for data collection. Data was collected before and after planned teaching programme and it was analyzed using percentage and Wilcoxan paired sign rank test. Result: It was found that there was gain in knowledge in various aspects after conduction of PTP. Regarding nutrition the average score increased from 39.24% to 88.85% (before and after PTP respectively). Regarding knowledge of high risk behavior the score increased from 19.44 % to 82.87%. The knowledge on Anatomy and physiology of reproduction, AIDS and STD,reproductive health and personal hygiene etc also improved significantly after PTP. Conclusion: Imparting PTP on reproductive health among adolescent girls is quite effective if done in a well organized and scientific way.

Science of breeding and heredity from ancient Persia to modern Iran.

About 1700 years BC, the prophet Zoroaster declared equal right for women and men to choose their “own ways.” There is much evidence that ancient Persians believed in the equal contribution of women and men toward producing a child, and all its hereditary characteristics. Even more surprising are the phrases in Vandidad book, which were gathered by Mobedans in the Mad dynasty about egg extraction (gametes) from animal reproductive organs (gonads) and their storage for future conception. Centuries later, Western philosopher beliefs in regard to reproduction were contrary to Persian knowledge. The Greek philosophers believed that man's water (semen) contains all human characteristics, and the female uterus is only responsible for nurturing and development of fetus. After detection of the ovum (de Graaf 2nd half 17 century) Malpigy proposed the preformation theory (ovist) which means there is a miniature human inside ovum, that grows after Semen has entered the uterus and grow into a well-developed fetus. This hypothesis was later delegated to spermatozoa. These contradictory and inappropriate beliefs were subject to discussions and dispute, until C.E. Wolf demonstrated that the embryo is a product of the fertilization of ovum by spermatozoa. 800 years prior this the sage Ferdowsi “The Great Iranian Poet” explains nicely the equal participation of man and woman in the production of the fetus and transmission of characters. After the renaissance and especially in recent years, tremendous achievements have been made in unraveling biological secrets of reproduction. There was no work o n genetics in Iran until 1936, when a genetic course was added to the biology curriculum in related colleges and universities; Iranian Genetics Society was founded in 1966, initiating a steady movement in this field. Although there was an inevitable gap during the revolution and war in our country, now there is great effort by researchers to eliminate the gap and bring us into the mainstream of world science, and development in biomedical sciences in the third millennium.