reproductive health refers to

Reproductive health refers to the complete state of physical, psychological and social adaptation achieved by an individual throughout the life cycle of the reproductive system, reproductive functions and reproductive processes, not just the absence of disease or infirmity. This is the official definition clearly given by the World Health Organization in 1994, and it is still applicable today.

But if you really talk about this word with ordinary people, their reactions will often go off the rails.

Not long ago, I met a 22-year-old girl at a community free clinic. She was holding a post on her mobile phone that read "Bleeding during ovulation is premature ovarian failure." She cried and said that she would definitely not be able to have a baby. I asked her if she had any other discomforts. She said that except for a little brown secretion two or three days a month, she had nothing. There was also a 30-year-old man who tried to get pregnant for half a year without success, so he immediately labeled himself as "infertile". He stopped smoking and drinking, and took a lot of various supplements. Finally, it was found that he had been sitting for too long and his sperm motility was slightly low. After two months of adjustment, he became pregnant. You see, the vast majority of people’s understanding of reproductive health still remains within the narrowest categories of “whether they can have children” and “whether they have sexually transmitted diseases”.

Interestingly, in the field of reproductive health, the focuses of researchers from different directions are actually quite different. Practitioners in the traditional public health field mostly focus on prevention and control at the physiological level. When I first joined the industry, I followed my predecessors to do publicity and education at the grassroots level. The brochures distributed basically talked about scientific contraception, how many prenatal checkups should be done during pregnancy, and how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. Disease, when the quota for annual cancer screening is reduced, we have to go door-to-door to ask the elder sisters in the village to do it. These things may seem trivial, but they actually strengthen the bottom line of reproductive health - after all, if you can't even basic disease prevention and control, talking about anything else is in vain.

But in the past five or six years, more and more researchers with sociology and psychology backgrounds have joined in, and everyone has slowly discovered that many issues that we have ignored before actually fall into the category of reproductive health. I previously received a consultation from a 14-year-old girl. Because her breasts developed earlier than her peers, she was afraid of being laughed at by her classmates. She wore a very tight corset every day. Finally, the pain became unbearable and she went to the hospital. She was found to have small nodules in her breasts. She cried and told me that she always felt that this was a disease she contracted because of her "embarrassment". She did not dare to tell her parents at all, and she did not know that this was actually a reproductive health problem. There are also many women who have given birth to damaged pelvic floor muscles, resulting in pain in the vagina and leakage of urine. People around them tell her that "it is like this after giving birth", and they forcefully postpone recovery until the symptoms become severe. These are the cognitive deficiencies at the psychological and social levels, which cause damage to reproductive health.

Of course, there is now a lot of controversy in this area. For example, the two sides have been arguing for almost ten years about whether adolescent sex education is included in reproductive health services. Opposing parents believe that teaching underage children about reproductive organs and contraceptive knowledge is a disguised way to guide them into early love and sexual intercourse. In the past, some parents tore up the sex education manual issued by the school and brought it to the education bureau. Those who support it believe that the number of unintended pregnancies and sexual assaults among teenagers is increasing year by year precisely because of the lack of sex education. Many children who have been hurt do not know what happened, let alone how to seek help. In fact, the appeals of both sides are reasonable. Parents are afraid that poor standards will lead to bad children, and practitioners are afraid that insufficient popularization will harm children. Now we are exploring grading methods when doing publicity and education. We teach physical boundaries to children in elementary schools, common sense of development to children in junior high schools, and contraception and responsibilities to high school children. We try to take into account both sides.

After working as a missionary for so many years, my biggest feeling is that reproductive health is really not a lofty academic concept, nor is it something that only needs to be concerned about when you are preparing for pregnancy or when you are sick. It’s when you develop during puberty. You don’t need to feel ashamed because you have a beard or have your period. ； When you are in love, you can decide whether to have sex or not without being held hostage by the other person’s morals. ； After you give birth to your child, if you leak urine, you don’t have to think, “Everyone is like this so I can just tolerate it.” Instead, go to the rehabilitation center openly. ； No matter how old you are, as long as you feel uncomfortable in the reproductive-related parts, you can go to the gynecology and men's department openly without feeling embarrassed.

At the end of the last free clinic, an aunt in her 50s held my hand and said that she had been itching in her lower body for almost two years. She always felt that it was because of her poor hygiene. She did not dare to tell others or go to the doctor. After listening to my explanation today, she realized that this was a common inflammation and that it would be cured with treatment. You see, we have talked about reproductive health for so many years, and finally put it into practice, so that more people don't have to be ashamed of normal body reactions, and don't have to hold their heads up because of related diseases. That's all.