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NCERT Solutions · Class 12 Biology Reproductive Health

12 exercises · 12 still being checked

Exercises 3.1–3.12

  1. Exercise 3.1

    What do you think is the significance of reproductive health in a society?

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    Reproductive health means a total well-being in all aspects of reproduction — physical, emotional, behavioural and social (WHO). A society whose people have functionally normal reproductive organs and normal emotional and behavioural interactions in all sex-related aspects is a reproductively healthy society.
    Its significance lies in what it delivers to the society:
    Creates awareness about reproductive organs, adolescence and its changes, and safe and hygienic sexual practices, so myths and misconceptions about sex are replaced by right information.
    Checks sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and AIDS through prevention, early detection and cure, avoiding later complications such as PID, abortions, still births, ectopic pregnancies, infertility and cancer of the reproductive tract.
    Helps control uncontrolled population growth by making birth control options known to fertile couples and to those in the marriageable age group, encouraging families of desired size.
    Protects mothers and children — care of pregnant mothers, medically assisted deliveries, post-natal care and breast feeding lower maternal mortality rate (MMR) and infant mortality rate (IMR).
    Helps infertile couples through infertility clinics and assisted reproductive technologies.
    Builds a socially responsible society — equal opportunities for the male and the female child, and prevention of social evils like sex-abuse, sex-related crimes and female foeticide.
    India was among the first countries to take this up as a social goal: 'family planning' from $\displaystyle 1951$, now running as the Reproductive and Child Health Care (RCH) programmes.

  2. Exercise 3.2

    Suggest the aspects of reproductive health which need to be given special attention in the present scenario.

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    The aspects needing special attention today are:
    Sex education in schools — right information to the young, so that children do not grow up on myths and misconceptions about sex-related aspects.
    Awareness of reproductive organs, adolescence and the changes that come with it, and safe and hygienic sexual practices.
    Awareness of STIs and AIDS, since their incidence is highest in the $\displaystyle 15$–$\displaystyle 24$ year age group, with facilities for early detection and complete treatment.
    Knowledge of the available birth control options for fertile couples and for those in the marriageable age group, and of the problems caused by uncontrolled population growth.
    Care of pregnant mothers and post-natal care of mother and child, and the importance of breast feeding.
    Equal opportunities for the male and the female child, with the statutory ban on amniocentesis for sex-determination enforced to check female foeticide.
    Prevention of social evils — sex-abuse and sex-related crimes.
    Safe, legal medical termination of pregnancy, to end the illegal abortions performed by unqualified quacks.
    Help for infertile couples through infertility clinics and assisted reproductive technologies.
    Strong infrastructural facilities, professional expertise and material support, plus massive child immunisation and continued research on new and improved methods.

  3. Exercise 3.3

    Is sex education necessary in schools? Why?

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    Yes — sex education in schools is necessary, and the chapter says its introduction should be encouraged.
    It gives the young the right information and so discourages children from believing in myths and misconceptions about sex-related aspects.
    It teaches proper facts about reproductive organs, adolescence and the related changes, so the changes of puberty are met without fear or shame.
    It teaches safe and hygienic sexual practices, and about STIs and AIDS — important because the incidence of these infections is highest in the $\displaystyle 15$–$\displaystyle 24$ year age group, the group school students belong to.
    It informs about available birth control options and the need for families of desired size, preparing students for responsible adult life.
    It builds awareness of sex-abuse and sex-related crimes, helping young people recognise and prevent them.
    Overall it is the primary step towards a reproductively healthy and socially responsible society.

  4. Exercise 3.4

    Do you think that reproductive health in our country has improved in the past $\displaystyle 50$ years? If yes, mention some such areas of improvement.

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    Yes, reproductive health in our country has improved. The areas of improvement are:
    Better awareness about sex-related matters, spread through audio-visual and print media by governmental and non-governmental agencies.
    Increased number of medically assisted deliveries and better post-natal care, leading to decreased maternal and infant mortality rates.
    Increased number of couples with small families, supported by the statutory raising of marriageable age ($\displaystyle 18$ years for females, $\displaystyle 21$ for males) and incentives to small families.
    Better detection and cure of STIs, and overall increased medical facilities for all sex-related problems.
    Legalisation of MTP in $\displaystyle 1971$ with strict conditions, which reduces unsafe illegal abortions.
    Statutory ban on amniocentesis for sex-determination to check female foeticide, and massive child immunisation.
    Indigenous research — Saheli, a non-steroidal 'once a week' oral contraceptive, was developed by scientists at the Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow.
    Assistance to infertile couples through infertility clinics and assisted reproductive technologies.

  5. Exercise 3.5

    What are the suggested reasons for population explosion?

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    The suggested reasons for population explosion are:
    A rapid decline in death rate.
    A decline in maternal mortality rate (MMR).
    A decline in infant mortality rate (IMR).
    An increase in the number of people in the reproducible age group.
    Behind all four lie increased health facilities along with better living conditions, which improved quality of life but had an explosive impact on population growth.
    The scale of it: world population was about $\displaystyle 2$ billion in $\displaystyle 1900$, about $\displaystyle 6$ billion by $\displaystyle 2000$ and $\displaystyle 7.2$ billion in $\displaystyle 2011$; India's was about $\displaystyle 350$ million at independence, close to a billion by $\displaystyle 2000$, and crossed $\displaystyle 1.2$ billion in May 2011.
    The $\displaystyle 2011$ census put the growth rate at less than $\displaystyle 2$ per cent, i.e. \(\displaystyle 20/1000/\text{year}\) — still a rate at which the population could increase rapidly and cause absolute scarcity of food, shelter and clothing.

  6. Exercise 3.6

    Is the use of contraceptives justified? Give reasons.

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    Yes, the use of contraceptives is justified. Reasons:
    They prevent unwanted pregnancies arising from casual unprotected intercourse or rape.
    They allow couples to delay or space pregnancies for personal reasons.
    They have a significant role in checking uncontrolled population growth, whose alarming rate could otherwise cause absolute scarcity of the basic requirements — food, shelter and clothing.
    Condoms carry the additional benefit of protecting the user from contracting STIs and AIDS.
    Two cautions the chapter attaches:
    Contraceptives are not a regular requirement for maintaining reproductive health — they are practised against a natural reproductive event, i.e. conception/pregnancy.
    Their possible ill-effects — nausea, abdominal pain, breakthrough bleeding, irregular menstrual bleeding or even breast cancer — though not very significant, should not be ignored; selection and use should always be in consultation with qualified medical professionals.

  7. Exercise 3.7

    Removal of gonads cannot be considered as a contraceptive option. Why?

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    Removal of the gonads is not a contraceptive option: it is an irreversible, organ-removing operation, and although it would certainly stop conception, contraception is meant to prevent conception, not to abolish the reproductive organs.
    The chapter's test for an ideal contraceptive is that it be user-friendly, easily available, effective and reversible, with no or the least side-effects, and that it not interfere with the sexual drive, desire or the sexual act. Gonadectomy meets the effectiveness condition; it fails on reversibility and on side-effects, and those failures are enough to disqualify it.
    Once the testes or ovaries are cut out, nothing can restore them. Contraceptives, by contrast, are used to prevent a pregnancy or to delay or space pregnancies — a couple who later change their mind must have that choice left open, and after gonad removal there is none.
    The gonads are not mere gamete factories. The testis secretes the testicular hormones called androgens (from the Leydig cells), and the ovary secretes steroid ovarian hormones besides releasing the ovum. Removing the gonad permanently ends that secretion as well — nothing like the "no or least side-effects" the chapter demands, and on a different scale altogether from the ill-effects it lists for contraceptives (nausea, abdominal pain, breakthrough bleeding, irregular menstrual bleeding).
    The chapter's own surgical methods deliberately stop short of the gonad. In vasectomy a small part of the vas deferens is removed or tied up through a small incision on the scrotum; in tubectomy a small part of the fallopian tube is removed or tied up through a small incision in the abdomen or through the vagina. Surgical intervention there blocks gamete transport, and the testis or ovary stays in place and keeps working.
    Even these sterilisation procedures, which spare the gonads, are described as highly effective but very poor in reversibility, and they are advised only as a terminal method. Removing the gonads would be worse on exactly that count.
    None of the contraceptive categories the chapter lists — natural/traditional, barrier, IUDs, oral pills, injectables, implants and surgical — takes out a reproductive organ. Gonadectomy is major mutilating surgery with permanent hormonal loss, and so falls outside contraception entirely.

  8. Exercise 3.8

    Amniocentesis for sex determination is banned in our country. Is this ban necessary? Comment.

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    Yes, the ban on amniocentesis for sex-determination is necessary and fully justified.
    What the technique is: in amniocentesis some of the amniotic fluid of the developing foetus is taken to analyse the foetal cells and dissolved substances.
    Its legitimate use is diagnostic — to test for certain genetic disorders such as Down syndrome, haemophilia and sickle-cell anaemia, and to determine the survivability of the foetus. The ban does not touch this use.
    Its misuse is to determine the sex of the unborn child; frequently, if the foetus is found to be female it is followed by MTP. This is female foeticide and is totally against what is legal.
    Hence the statutory ban on amniocentesis for sex-determination, to legally check the increasing menace of female foeticides.
    Such MTPs are dangerous both for the young mother and the foetus, and a majority of MTPs are performed illegally by unqualified quacks — unsafe and even fatal.
    The practice also works against equal opportunities for the male and the female child, which reproductive health programmes are meant to promote.
    Along with the ban, effective counselling and more health care facilities are needed to reverse this unhealthy trend.

  9. Exercise 3.9

    Suggest some methods to assist infertile couples to have children.

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    Infertile couples can first be helped at specialised health care units (infertility clinics), which diagnose and correct some of these disorders; where correction is not possible, the assisted reproductive technologies (ART) are used:
    IVF–ET (in vitro fertilisation followed by embryo transfer), popularly the test tube baby programme — ova from the wife/donor and sperms from the husband/donor are collected and induced to form a zygote under simulated conditions in the laboratory.
    ZIFT (zygote intra fallopian transfer) — the zygote or early embryo with up to $\displaystyle 8$ blastomeres is transferred into the fallopian tube.
    IUT (intra uterine transfer) — embryos with more than $\displaystyle 8$ blastomeres are transferred into the uterus.
    GIFT (gamete intra fallopian transfer) — an ovum collected from a donor is transferred into the fallopian tube of another female who cannot produce one but can provide a suitable environment for fertilisation and further development.
    ICSI (intra cytoplasmic sperm injection) — a sperm is directly injected into the ovum to form the embryo in the laboratory.
    AI (artificial insemination), including IUI (intra-uterine insemination) — semen from the husband or a healthy donor is artificially introduced into the vagina or the uterus; used when the male cannot inseminate the female or has a very low sperm count.
    Embryos formed by in-vivo fertilisation can also be used for such transfers.
    Legal adoption — these techniques need extremely high precision handling, expensive instrumentation and are available in very few centres, so adoption remains one of the best methods for couples looking for parenthood.

  10. Exercise 3.10

    What are the measures one has to take to prevent from contracting STDs?

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    The three simple principles given in the chapter:
    Avoid sex with unknown partners / multiple partners.
    Always try to use condoms during coitus.
    In case of doubt, go to a qualified doctor for early detection, and take complete treatment if diagnosed with an infection.
    Two further precautions follow from how some of these infections spread — hepatitis-B and HIV also pass through shared injection needles and surgical instruments and through transfusion of blood, so these must never be shared or used unsterilised, and blood must be screened.
    Do not let the social stigma attached to STIs delay detection; early symptoms are minor (itching, fluid discharge, slight pain, swellings in the genital region) and infected females are often asymptomatic, so timely check-up matters.
    Except hepatitis-B, genital herpes and HIV, these infections are completely curable if detected early and treated properly — which is why prevention and early detection are given prime consideration.

  11. Exercise 3.11

    State True/False with explanation
    (a)
    Abortions could happen spontaneously too. (True/False)
    (b)
    Infertility is defined as the inability to produce a viable offspring and is always due to abnormalities/defects in the female partner. (True/False)
    (c)
    Complete lactation could help as a natural method of contraception. (True/False)
    (d)
    Creating awareness about sex related aspects is an effective method to improve reproductive health of the people. (True/False)

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    (a) True. MTP is defined as the intentional or voluntary termination of pregnancy before full term, i.e. induced abortion — the word 'induced' sets it apart from abortion that occurs on its own. The chapter itself lists abortions among the complications that untreated STIs can cause, along with PID, still births and ectopic pregnancies.
    (b) False. Infertility is the inability to produce children in spite of unprotected sexual co-habitation (even after $\displaystyle 2$ years). It is not always the female's defect — the reasons may be physical, congenital, diseases, drugs, immunological or even psychological, and in India, though the female is often blamed, more often than not the problem lies in the male partner.
    (c) True. This is the lactational amenorrhea method: ovulation, and therefore the cycle, does not occur during the period of intense lactation following parturition, so as long as the mother breast-feeds the child fully the chances of conception are almost nil. It is effective only up to a maximum of six months following parturition.
    (d) True. Creating awareness — sex education, information on reproductive organs, adolescence and its changes, safe and hygienic sexual practices, STIs and AIDS, and birth control options — is the primary step towards reproductive health, and better awareness is one of the indicators of the improvement achieved in our country.

  12. Exercise 3.12

    Correct the following statements :
    (a)
    Surgical methods of contraception prevent gamete formation.
    (b)
    All sexually transmitted diseases are completely curable.
    (c)
    Oral pills are very popular contraceptives among the rural women.
    (d)
    In E. T. techniques, embryos are always transferred into the uterus.

    The book prints no answer for this

    NCERT publishes no answers for this textbook, so there is nothing in the book to check this working against. It has also not yet been read through by hand.

    (a) Surgical methods of contraception prevent gamete transport, not gamete formation. In vasectomy a small part of the vas deferens is removed or tied up through a small incision on the scrotum, and in tubectomy a small part of the fallopian tube is removed or tied up; the gonads stay in place and continue to form gametes.
    (b) All sexually transmitted diseases are not completely curable — hepatitis-B, genital herpes and HIV infections are the exceptions. The others are completely curable if detected early and treated properly.
    (c) Oral pills are very effective, have lesser side-effects and are well accepted by the females — the chapter names no rural or urban class of users at all, so the statement should not single out rural women. The method it calls one of the most widely accepted in India is the IUD, not the pill.
    (d) In E.T. techniques, embryos are not always transferred into the uterus. The zygote or an early embryo with up to $\displaystyle 8$ blastomeres is transferred into the fallopian tube (ZIFT), while an embryo with more than $\displaystyle 8$ blastomeres is transferred into the uterus (IUT).