Assessment Of The Awareness Effects Of Ionizing Radiation Among Pregnant Women

1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
x-ray had been discovered by Wilhelm coral Rontgen in December 1895 since that radiation is an accepted and fundamental part of medical practice many disorders in daily practice have been evaluated by radiological examination. The benefits of ionizing radiation are clearly visible in medical therapy and diagnosis (Grupen 2010).
Ionizing radiation posses a beneficial as well as the destructive potential of the living organism. The benefits of exposing the patient to radiation should outweigh the risk involved. In simple term ionizing radiation is when the beam of radiation passess through mater causing ionizing by the removal of orbital electron from the atom this molecular change can cause cellular damage which may cause abnormal cell function that varies depending on the dose and duration of exposure (sherer et al., 2017).
The said radiation exposure can cause death in some living cells and modify others. Usually , cells try to repair the damage, if the repaired is not perfect that eventually can result in adverse biological effects that occur later.
Radiation effects could be classified into stochastic effects (mainly canceo and genetic effect) occurs by chance and their probabilities increase with dose.
Non-stochastic effects severity to this effects varies with dose e.g erythema cataract of the eye lens and infertility (sherer et al., 2017).
The effect of radiation on the fetus has been derived from animal studies human exposures to diagnostic bumb radiation at Hitroshima ad Nagasaki in 1945 and to the fall out of Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion in April 1986 , it is important to appreciate that much of the information is falcen from the exposure of large population of hitroshima and Nagasaki (beir, 1990).
Radiation risk throughout pregnancy are related to the stage of pregnancy and the absorbed dose potential radiation effects vary depending on the fetal stage of development and the magnititude of the dose these risks are more significant during oranigenesis and in the carly fetal period , some what less in the second trimester. Mal formation have a threshold of 100 to 200 MGY or higher and are typically associated with central nervous system problems for examples , fetal dose of 100 MGY are not reached even with 3 pelvic computed tomography (CT) scans or 20 conventional diagnosis x-ray examination however theses levels can be reaches with fluoroscopically guided interventional procedures of the pelvic and with radio theraphy (ose, et al., 1999).

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Ionizing radiation plays a important role in healthcare system, (diagnostic and therapeutic purpose) hence it have it’s negative effects of radiation injury, pregnant women especially those at the 1st trismester are at the high risks of the radiation effecst. But most of them appear not to know the effects of radiation, effect on their unborn fetus therefore this study aim to asses the awareness of the effects of ionizing radiation among pregnancy women in taraba state specialist hospital, Jalingo.

1.3 GENERAL OBJECTIVE
Main objective
 To assess the awareness of the effects of ionizing radiation among pregnant women in Specialist Hospital Jalingo.
 To assesss the knowledge of pregnant women on modality that uses ionizing radation.
Alternative objective
 To assess the level of awareness of the effects of ionizing radiation among pregnant women.
 To asses the knowledge of the effects of radiation a development of unborn child.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
 What are the effects of radiation on development of the unborn child .
 How knowledgeable are pregnant women on the modality that uses ionizing radiation.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study will help the health care worker especially those in the antenatal care (ANC), pregnant women and to give acquaintance on the method of special protection to the pregnant women when ionizing radiation use on pregnant women of great important .

1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This study “ assessment of then awareness of the effects of ionizing radiation among pregnant women” was carried out in Taraba state specialist hospital jalingo for the period of July to September of 2021

DEFINITION OF TERMS
Assessment: The term assessment refers to the wide variety of methods or tools that educator use to evaluate, measure, and document the academic readiness , learning progress , skills acquisition , or education needs of students (Preston, 2015).
Ionizing radiation: Ionizing radiation is radiation with enough energy so that during an interaction with an atom, it can remove tightly bound electrons from the orbit of an atom, causing the atom to become charged or ionized (Dictionary of radiation terms, 2007).
Radiation: Is the emission of energy as electromagnetic waves or as moving subatomic particles, especially high-energy particles which cause ionization (Scally 2017).