AREDS’ health interventions for adolescent girls

Adolescent age is a critical stage in the life cycle of girls in particular. Until they reach this stage, their life revolves around their family. Once they reach adolescent age, they tend to extend their relationship outside their family circle to include friendships with the peer members of their own sex or opposite sex and other adults like respected teachers or tutors. They face conflicts between their personal aspirations and social pressure.  It is at this stage, they become rebellious, ignoring social stigmas and taboos.


Therefore, it is important to show them the right path, as they are at a stage which is full of inexplicable and new things. Hence, the AREDS Health Team sensitizes the adolescent girls on the physiological and psychological changes that they experience during this stage and answers their fear and doubts.

Physical development
Adolescence extends from puberty to adulthood. Puberty marks different biological changes in girls. For many of them, the natural phenomenon puberty is mysterious. The physiological growth in most of the adolescents reaches its zenith by mid-adolescence. At this stage, they will be close to their adults by height and weight and now, they will be physically capable of conceiving and producing babies. Many girls find the changes in their physique enigmatic. AREDS Health Team help the adolescent girls understand this natural phenomenon through trainings and personal interactions.

Menstrual cycle
Menstrual cycle is a natural thing in girls and women and it occurs every month to them until they reach menopause. Therefore, the health team explains the structures and the functions of ovary, uterus, tubes, egg and the genitals to the adolescent girls in schools as well as in the villages with diagrams and pictures. Pictorial explanation helps the girls understand the physiology of female gender comprehensively.

Menstrual hygiene
At this stage, the girls are susceptible to pathological infections and therefore, they must pay more attention on their personal hygiene. So, the health team provide health tips on the ways and means to keep personal hygiene and the cleanliness of their attire to the adolescent girls.


Food habits
Most of the Indian women and girls are anemic mainly due to their habit of taking in food items which have insufficient nutrition. Anemia causes complications in women during deliveries. Therefore, the health team advocate them of taking in nutritious food, which have high content of iron, protein and carbohydrates. Hence, they advise them to eat food items made of millets and to avoid junk foods.

Hemoglobin screening camp
Since most of the rural women and the adolescent girls are anemic, the AREDS Health Team organizes Hemoglobin Screening Camp for them in villages then and there. The health team insists that the parents of the adolescent girls, the girl-students in particular, accompany their daughters during the camp. The importance of taking in nutritious food, the importance of making food out of millets, personal hygiene and the preventive methods of anemia are being explained in the camps. The effects of hook worms and tape worms that are present in the human intestines on human health and the health practices to prevent the infestation of different harmful worms in human intestine are also dealt with in the camps.

Training programmes are organized every month for adolescent girls on personal and menstrual hygiene to enhance their knowledge on reproductive health. Trainings on pre-natal care to the pregnant women and post-natal care to the mothers are also conducted regularly. The trained mothers, being more aware of the nutritive and immune value of breast milk, breastfeed their infants and are more alert to causes of infection and at recognizing symptoms and seeking medical attention when needed.