SEX POSITIONS AND HIV

There are certain sex positions that must be avoided in order to prevent HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections. 

When a person is infected with HIV or other STIs, the semen or the vaginal fluid gets contaminated. This therefore means these fluids must be avoided to prevent getting infected.

The condom is very effective when it comes to having a protective sexual intercourse. However, what most people do not know is that even if you have your condom on and you use certain sex positions it can lead to infection. A typical example is woman on top position or cowgirl position. In these two positions, the woman goes on top of the man. Even if the man is protected by the condom, due to the position of the woman her vaginal fluid in the course of the penetration or thrusting the vaginal fluid will drip on the condom to the scrotum and the skin around it. If the woman is infected and there is any opening around those areas or skin of the man, infection is highly possible. If you don't know sex positions by name then you may be at sea so just get it from this angle...even when you wear the condom, avoid any sex position that can cause the vaginal fluid from dripping and getting on the skin as this can lead to infection. By: Counsellor Michael Tagoe

Yolo-Ymk Chit Chat 2

A Tale From The Grave Yard

My name is Adjoa and I am sharing my story with you from the grave. Are you surprised? Please don’t be! Because like you, I was once alive!

I was the only girl among four brothers; the first time I told my parents I wanted to go school just like my brothers I was beaten like an armed robber. My mother sold kenkey in the evening so I helped her prepare and sold to our customers. Through this I found a friend who claimed to love me. I knew very little about love and I wanted to talk to my parents about it but I remembered my father’s reaction when he found out my brother had a girlfriend. He beat the hell out of him! But I liked my new friend; he gave me all the attention I never had from my parents and even from my siblings. He bought me nice gifts and oh! He was good looking too.

Six months after I accepted a proposal to be his girlfriend I started seeing some changes in my body. My breasts became very tender, I didn’t see my menses for about three months and I got tired easily too. I was not too sure what was happening to my body but my mother suspected I was pregnant. At that point I got confused. But the pregnancy was confirmed.

I had spoken to Afua, my friend about my situation who said she knew a woman who could help me get rid of the pregnancy. She took me to a woman whose specialty was to help young women abort pregnancies. I was shocked to see a lot of girls in a queue waiting to be attended to. After waiting for a while I was asked by the woman to come indoors. She then showed me a concoction made from substances I could recognize easily.

She then inserted the concoction into my vagina and it felt uncomfortable. She reassured me that everything was going be okay. Afua took me home and minutes later I began to bleed profusely. God! Please, please, help me. I cried! It didn’t take long for my mother to realize what was happening to me. She called for a taxi to transport me to the hospital after seeing the state I was in. I could hear my mother pleading with one of the nurses to save her only daughter’s life. But the nurse retorted I deserved every bit of my pain for attempting an abortion. Now I am in the grave together with my dream of becoming a doctor. I may have made a mistake by getting pregnant but I think I deserved better care from the health worker whose responsibility is to save lives.

You don’t have to die from an abortion! Are you pregnant and confused, have you missed your period?

Call 0302 689 617 or WhatsApp 020 580 2800 or log on to www.adhdghana.org to talk to a counsellor.

ADOLESCENTS AND DIABETES

I’m back again, talking about the monthly “red devil”, haha, I know that you now have a name for the flow. Does having diabetes make things different for you as you approach this point in your womanhood? Well, it does a bit, but nothing which is that much unusual. So your menses are supposed to come every month, or if we want to be more accurate every cycle. Now let us calculate how we can estimate how we can know when to expect “ante”. Let’s do some calendar work a bit, I know that you love maths,right…hahaha. I realise that between the last time I wrote to you and now, you have started to have your menses.

Alright, so your last period came on the 13th of January and the next one was on the 7th of February, then in March it was on the 4th then also on the 30th of the same month. Why all this? This is a bit confusing right, because you thought that you should have your menses on the same day every month and also once a month not twice a month like what happened in March. Wow that is 2 times in a month, what is happening?

I hope you get this calculation, so based on this, we can predict that your next period is going to be between 25-26 or even 27 days from the 31st of March…now do the calculation and see what day you would get. So based on this day you would be prepared for the next flow, so that is what is marked PURPLE and that of May predicted dates is marked BROWN. Not difficult, is it? As long as you have a diary or a calendar it’s very easy to figure it out.
How many days will the menses occur, well, it varies from 3 days to 7 days, anything more than 10 days continuous should be reported to mummy so that she’ll take us to the doctor. The amount of bleeding days does not mean much, so don’t think that because you bled 3 days this month and 7 days last month, it means that something is wrong.
Before I finish this letter let me teach you a few conditions which when they happen during your menses you should let mummy know……
Dysmenorrhea, this is the pain that you may get just before or during your period. It would be lower abdominal pain and some funny cramps. You can take some pain killers during this time, if it gets too painful let mummy know
Polymenorrhea this is when your cycle is less than 21 days, so in effect you will be having your menses more times than previously.
Metrorrhagia when your menses come at irregular times for more than 3 months and you bleed in between your expected times when your period is supposed to come.
Do you still have questions about the “red devil”…hahaha. If so kindly let me know.
Yours truly
LaDyC

M. Calendar

So even though you are counting it as monthly, you should rather be counting the days. Start counting from the 1st day of your menses to the next first day of your menses, this should give you the days in your cycle. So you count the number of days and expect the next period. So let’s do some counting from the 13th of January to 7th of February was….25 days in between right, then from 6th to the 4th of March was 26 days, then 4th of March to 31st of March was 26 days, meaning that even though your period occurred in the same month, the number of days in the cycle was what you expected.

Now does diabetes affect the timing of your period? Yes, if your blood sugar is poorly controlled and you get ill, your body protects itself by stopping the period from happening, now another cause of missed periods is PREGNANCY.

Do you know who pregnancy occurs, I know that the girls in class have been whispering somethings about sex and you have been curious. Please wait I’ll give you more details, for now just focus on your studies and let the boys come later in life otherwise Mummy will “kill” you oooo.

Please ignore the people who will sell drugs saying that they will make your period come plenty so that instead of 3 or 5 days you will have it for 7 days. I know this because Agya Kojo the medicine seller has been singing this song every morning by our house on his way to the market to sell his herbs.

Will your period cycle and number of days remain the same throughout your life time? No it will change and remember that illness and admissions in the hospital may cause some changes, so make sure that you try and keep your blood sugar levels as close to normal as possible, eat a healthy diet and exercise as much as you can.

Please make sure that you change your pads often during your menses, now talking about pads, there are so many on the market, see the one that you are comfortable with and use it. The days that your menses are heavy use the thicker ones and use the thinner ones when your menses are light. Mummy said that in her time they used to use cloth and had to wash it often, OMG yes ooo that was my expression ei hmmm thank God for advancement. There are these other things called tampons, cotton wool and recently I read about menstrual cups. The tampons are easy to use but a lot of people are not very comfortable with it. I heard Mercy saying the other day that her big sister said that if you use tampons, you would be breaking your virginity. Well let me tell you the truth it is not true. The tampons when fixed do not go and break you hymen (I have brought another word haahaha this is a thin sheet which lies in your cervix and would only get broken when you have sex with a boy, hahaaha don’t turn brown and black or green oooo, so once it is broken it means that you are no longer a virgin)

YOLO YMK Chit-Chat

A DREAM GONE WASTE!

Goaal... Ayeley and I screamed loudly. Ghana had just equalized with a goal in a match against USA. I know only three things in football: corner kick, penalty kick and goal. I only need to see the ball enter the net. But my friend Ayeley knows all about football. She kept screaming, kicking the table, yelling at the Black Stars where to pass the ball, and then the USA scored another goal- "2- 1? What?!" I screamed. I was devastated, but Ayeley was furious. Then her anger turned into sadness. I realized why. She had always wanted to be a footballer and her dream was to play for the National women’s team, The Black Queens. Unfortunately, unplanned pregnancies killed that dream. At 21, Ayeley is a mother of two.

I live in an urban slum in Accra, Ghana’s capital, and the number of pregnant teenagers and young mothers in my community is appalling.

My friend Akua Dadzie had to drop out of school at age 14 after writing her BECE. Her mum, a single mother, told her she has had enough education. "After all, not every girl in the community completed JHS," she told Akua.

But Akua wanted to be a nurse.

She later found an older man who showed her more love than she had ever experienced. He told her how beautiful she was. He gave her money and took care of her mum as well. Her mother encouraged her "to give what she has to get what she wants".

When Akua became pregnant some months after dating the man, she began having suicidal thoughts after the man who claimed to love her started ignoring her. An attempted abortion landed her in hospital with severe gastrointestinal problems. She could have died!

This made me think about how poverty can push parents to neglect their children’s dreams. I was lucky because my parents did all they could, including selling their clothes to keep me in school. I helped by studying hard and working to support my parents while schooling.

Many girls are not so lucky. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), more than 100 million adolescents do not attend school, 16 million girls become mothers every year and almost 40 percent of the 6,800 daily new HIV infections are among young people.

As a young woman, I believe we can help reduce adolescent pregnancy. If girls are given the opportunity to chase their dreams, adolescent pregnancies, unsafe abortions and related problems will decrease. So let’s help our girls score their dream GOALS in life.

Written by Edith Asamani - Curious Minds

WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO!

Adolescence is a developmental transition between childhood and adulthood. It is the period from puberty until full adult status is reached/attained. The Ghana Health Service (GHS) defines the adolescent as a young person between the ages of 10 to 19 years. Adolescence is a long period of about a decade during which a lot of changes occur physically, psychologically and socially.

At this stage of life, adolescents need support and direction to shape their lives productively and health wise. Adolescents are an important segment of the population and play a vital role in the economy of society and country at large.

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) developed the Adolescent Health and Development Programme, usually referred to as the ADHD programme in the health Sector to address the health needs of adolescents and young people in Ghana.

Vision

To have well-informed adolescents and young people adopting healthy lifestyles physically and psychologically and supported by a responsive health system and health related sectors.

Mission

To make available appropriate information and counselling services on young people’s health and provide comprehensive health services and other complementary programmes such as self-care, life and livelihood skills to adolescent and young people health.

Why is the GHS interested in the Adolescents?

The Adolescence period is a cross-road in life and a gateway to health promotion. Adolescents in Ghana suffer from a range of health problems often associated with particular behavioural patterns and risk-taking. They need health information and services, self-care skills, life skills, livelihood skills and leadership skills to develop. This information should be accurate to help them protect their health and to develop healthy behaviours. What they do and do not do can affect their health now and in the future. The health of all adolescents and young people in Ghana is our concern.

Our Primary Target (Clients)    

• Younger adolescents (10-14yrs)
• Older adolescents (15-19yrs)
• Young adults (20-24yrs)

Our Secondary Target (Stakeholders)

• Parents/guardians
• Teachers
• Health workers
• Policy makers
• Religious leaders
• Traditions rulers
• Media
• Civil society organizations
• Politicians
• Significant others