Women and Family Health: The Role of Mothers in Promoting Family and Child Health

In many societies, women have been socialized to provide care and maintenance to the family unit by procuring and preparing food, giving care to dependent family members, and by socializing children to become productive adults. Thus, women\u27s roles within families have positioned them to become health managers or promoters of overall family health, particularly for children in developing countries whose lives are directly linked to that of their mothers. The authors propose that efforts to improve the health of children should focus on the family unit as a whole, with a particular focus on the mother or mother figures of the family. Using a systems approach which centers on the mother-child dyad, this paper suggests a model to facilitate women/ mothers\u27 functioning as family health managers for the well-being of children. Policy implications for promoting the role of mothers as family health managers are also discussed