Reproductive Health Awareness: A Wellness, Self-Care Approach

This resource manual is designed to help training providers develop reproductive health classes and training programmes that will increase knowledge, foster supportive attitudes, and develop skills that are important for good reproductive health for people of all ages. The manual focuses on reproductive health awareness, which includes an awareness of:

• The human body and the many opportunities for self-care
• Gender issues that affect reproductive health and efforts to address gender inequities
• A person's own sexuality, as well as the sexuality of others
• The power of interpersonal communication for improved reproductive health

These points reflect the four key components of the RHA approach: body awareness and self-care; gender; sexuality; and interpersonal communication.

The Reproductive Health Awareness (RHA) Manual aims to provide a framework and a cohesive programme that trainers can use to help providers of health services promote wellness of their clients at every stage of life. According to the authors, the RHA approach can be applied to different reproductive health topics including family planning, safe motherhood, male reproductive health, prevention of sexually transmitted infections, and other areas. The goal of the RHA approach is to facilitate a process by which people of all ages are empowered to increase their understanding of and take action to better meet their own reproductive health care needs.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Chapter One - Reproductive Health Awareness: An Overview
• Chapter Two - Gender: Implications for Health
• Chapter Three - Body Awareness and Self-Care: Focus on Fertility
• Chapter Four - Body Awareness and Self-Care Practices
• Chapter Five - Sexuality: Healthy Expression Throughout Life
• Chapter Six - Interpersonal Communication: Talking with My Partner
• Chapter Seven - Interpersonal Communication: Skills for Providers
• Chapter Eight - RHA through the Life Cycle: Birth through Adolescence
• Chapter Nine - RHA through the Life Cycle: Fertile and Aging Adults
• Chapter Ten - Family Planning and the RHA Approach
• Chapter Eleven - Creating Change: Achieving Healthy Behaviors
• Chapter Twelve - RHA and the Community: A Focus on Safe Motherhood
• Chapter Thirteen - Implementing the RHA Approach
• Chapter Fourteen - Evaluation: Trainer, Participants, Training, and Program

Click here to download the complete manual or single chapters in PDF format, or order your print or CD-ROM version online.