Gestating Healthy Policies for Young Parents

Many animals exhibit parental care behavior, including feeding, grooming, and protecting young offspring. Parental care is universal in mammals and birds, which often have young that are born relatively helpless. Several species of insects and fish, as well as some amphibians, also care for their young.

Preventive healthcare services keep people healthy via frequent check-ups, screening, and counseling. They primarily aid in disease prevention rather than treating an acute or chronic illness. Preventive treatment also keeps individuals productive and energetic, allowing them to work well into their retirement years. Examples of preventive care services include:

Organisms must balance energy intake with the energy required for growth, maintenance and reproduction. These trade-offs result in a variety of survivorship and reproductive strategies, including semelparity and iteroparity. Semelparous species, like annual plants, have only one reproductive episode in their lifetimes and consequently have short lifespans. Iteroparous species, by contrast, have many reproductive events during their lifetimes but have relatively few offspring. These two...

Female infertility is defined as the inability to conceive after a year of regular, unprotected intercourse and affects about 10–15% of couples worldwide. The primary cause of female infertility is ovulatory disorders, which hinder the release of eggs. These disorders can be classified as hypothalamic amenorrhea, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), premature ovarian failure, and hyperprolactinemic anovulation disorders.
Endometriosis, a condition characterized by abnormal growth of...

Jeffrey Arnett's concept of emerging adulthood offers a framework to understand the unique developmental stage between adolescence and full-fledged adulthood, generally from ages 18 to 25. This period is marked by extensive exploration and shifts in identity, relationships, and career choices, a process known in psychology as role experimentation. Emerging adulthood reflects the evolving cultural expectations surrounding adulthood and the dynamic process of personal transformation during...

The ability of a drug to produce structural deformations and functional abnormalities in the developing embryo or the fetus is called teratogenicity, and the drug producing this effect is known as a teratogen. Teratogenic effects include stillbirth, miscarriage, intrauterine growth restriction, and neurocognitive delay. A teratogen may affect the embryo at different stages of development, which is important in determining the type and extent of the damage. During blastocyst formation, the early...