How Many Active Duty Women Have a Baby Every Year

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They may not come issued with a seabag, merely children are an important part of military families. Healthy, resilient children and families contribute to the readiness of individual service members.

At the Naval Health Research Center (NHRC), we employ scientific discipline and research to support the youngest members of our armed forces community. Two projects within our Deployment Health Research Section-the Department of Defense (DOD) Birth and Infant Wellness Inquiry (BIHR) program and the Millennium Cohort Family Study-focus on the health of service members and their families. Researchers study exposures and experiences, particularly those unique to military service, and whether they have an impact on the physical or mental wellness of military machine children.

Each year, approximately 100,000 infants are born to military families. These children who were born into the military machine community volition continue to exist afflicted past war machine life for years to come. Understanding the relationship betwixt armed forces service and the health of military children is important to the well-being and readiness of the entire family.

Fast facts for military births, 2003–2016

• ane.5 million infants born to military families
• 66% born to spouses of agile duty service members
• 13% born to active duty women
• 21% built-in to Reserve/National Guard mothers or other DoD beneficiaries
• 63% born to moms aged twenty–29
• 89% born to sponsors who were married
• 66% born to non-Hispanic whites

Military service and reproductive wellness

The BIHR team monitors health outcomes, such as birth defects and low birth weight, amidst infants built-in to military families through their first year of life. Notwithstanding, since exposures that occur just before or during pregnancy tin bear on the overall health of an babe, the BIHR squad too focuses their inquiry on potentially concerning exposures that tin can happen before a baby is built-in.

What is a potentially apropos exposure? Exposure to the workplace or environmental contaminants, chemicals, toxins, or other hazards is potentially apropos because they could bear on the reproductive wellness of individuals exposed to them. How an exposure impacts reproductive health depends on several things, including:

• When the exposure happened (before conception or during pregnancy)
• What type of exposure (chemical, infectious disease, radiations, stress-related)
• Amount of the exposure
• Duration of the exposure

Armed forces children are born in all fifty states and overseas, and so exposures could result from something not specifically related to military service. For example, military families stationed in Japan at the time of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent Fukushima nuclear ability plant disaster had a potential exposure to radiation. The BIHR team's research can assist determine if infants built-in to parents following such unexpected exposures have an increased run a risk for poor wellness outcomes.

Perhaps of greater value to war machine families is research that looks at risks following anticipated exposures-exposures that are an expected part of military service, such as deployments and vaccinations. By identifying these types of risks, procedural and policy changes tin can be made to prevent or reduce them.

Vaccinations are a standard part of military life and warfighter readiness. They protect service members from infectious diseases they may encounter due to living in close quarters or by deploying to parts of the world where sure diseases are a concern. A number of these vaccines are not recommended for use in pregnancy, such every bit anthrax or smallpox vaccine. Sometimes, though, they are inadvertently given to female service members who may be meaning but are not enlightened at the time they are vaccinated.

In the early on 2000's, when a mandatory smallpox vaccination program was initiated, efforts of the BIHR team indicated that revisions to the vaccination pre-screening grade, such as targeted questions about the possibility of pregnancy, would reduce the number of service women inadvertently vaccinated while pregnant.

Even though the adventure of accidental vaccination during pregnancy can be reduced, information technology's not possible to completely foreclose it. That's why the team developed registries for active duty women vaccinated with smallpox and anthrax while significant. The goal is to evaluate pregnancy and babe health outcomes among those inadvertently exposed to these vaccines.

Because of their piece of work tracking these women and studying their health outcomes, the BIHR squad has institute that infants born to women vaccinated confronting smallpox or anthrax during pregnancy do non have higher rates of birth defects, preterm birth, or depression nativity weight when compared to infants in the overall BIHR plan. The smallpox vaccine registry follows these infants through early childhood, and take constitute they are reaching historic period-advisable developmental milestones.

Deployments can also result in exposures. Later on the first Gulf State of war, service members whose children were built-in with nascence defects were concerned their state of war-time exposures led to their infants' birth defects. At the fourth dimension, there was no available baseline information for reproductive health outcomes and the DoD was not able to decide if there was an clan. In 1998, the Banana Secretarial assistant of Defense for Health Affairs established the BIHR program in direct response to these concerns.

From 2003 through 2014, approximately half-dozen.2 percent of infants born to active duty women were born to moms who were deployed for part of their pregnancy. The BIHR team can monitor these infants to meet how their health outcomes compared to infants whose mothers did not deploy. The team besides monitors the health of infants conceived following their agile duty father's return from deployment-exposures of potential business organization experienced past male service members could also impact baby wellness.

Armed services life and families

While the BIHR team focuses on the physical health of the youngest military children, infants, the Millennium Cohort Family unit Study looks at the overall well-existence of military families, including children.

Launched in 2011, the Millennium Cohort Family Study was designed to determine if, and how, deployment experiences and service member readjustment issues affect family wellness and well-beingness. Military machine family unit members are selected to take part in the study if their service member participates in the Millennium Cohort Study, a research projection examining the long-term furnishings of military machine service.

To engagement, nigh 10,000 spouses of service members with two to five years of service have been surveyed. Their responses provide a better understanding of armed services life from the perspective of a spouse. Every three years, families in the study are asked to share their experiences, providing of import information about how military families adapt over time as they manage deployments, moves, separations, and other life and career transitions. Together, the Millennium Cohort Written report and the Family Study create a consummate picture of the triumphs and challenges faced by armed forces families. Findings from these studies can be used to develop and guide programs, interventions, and policies that support service members and their families.

Simply as deployment-related exposures can influence the physical wellness of infants, deployments can as well impact the psychological and behavioral health of children while service members are away and when they're transitioning dorsum dwelling. And deployment is a mutual occurrence for military families-approximately 70 percent of participants in the Family Written report have reported experiencing at to the lowest degree ane deployment.

Factors contributing to a child'south deployment-related stress include increased demands on the parent at dwelling house, shifting household responsibilities, and worry well-nigh the rubber of the deployed service fellow member. An article published past the Family Study, "Mental wellness of children of deployed and nondeployed U.S. military service members: The Millennium Cohort Family Study," examined how a parent's deployment can bear upon their child'due south symptoms of depression and behavioral problems. Study findings suggest that nigh war machine children appear to be doing well but some may take a greater likelihood of low or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) during or after a parent's deployment.

While a deployment may increase the risk for children's psychological and behavioral health issues, researchers take also identified factors that can positively influence how well children handle a parent'south deployment. Study findings indicate that military spouses who feel deployment and tin remain involved in normal social activities with friends and family had children with lower odds of low or ADHD.

Research for prepare families, resilient children

Military service doesn't just affect the agile duty member, information technology touches all members of the armed forces family, including children. Deployments, service-related experiences and exposures, and the unique aspects of military machine life all accept the potential to impact the physical health and psychological well-being of military machine children.

Through projects like the BIHR plan and the Family Study, researchers can amend agreement of the relationship between armed services service and child health in an effort to reduce health risks, develop interventions, and provide support for military children. Research can lay the foundation for building healthy, ready, and resilient military children.

For more than news from Naval Health Research Middle, visit www.navy.mil/local/nhrc/.

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Source: https://www.militarynews.com/norfolk-navy-flagship/news/quarterdeck/boots-birth-beyond-studying-the-health-of-military-children/article_bc33ae85-23b0-5a17-81b7-cf57462c480d.html

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