Rebecca Ejifoma who carried out investigation on the use of family planning by Nigerian couples, reports that the overall acceptance is still below expectations in the country.
Ruth and her children
Nigeria has made progress in improving the use of contraceptives over the past decades. However, there is room for improvement even in the face of longstanding myths and misconceptions concerning their use.
First mother
Religious inclination and cultural beliefs are holding back service providers in Nigeria from encouraging unmarried young people to prevent unwanted pregnancy through family planning.
Dimos Sakellaridis, Country Director, DKT International, said this on Tuesday in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES against the backdrop of the World Contraception Day.
The Day is usually celebrated on September 26.
Although the claim that hormonal contraceptives might increase the risk of acquiring HIV is yet to be proven, experts, in this report by SADE OGUNTOLA, say that women need to also consider combining them with condoms to reduce the risk of HIV infection or STIs.
Only 2.1 per cent of married women in Bauchi State are using a modern method of contraceptive, which is lower than the national rate of 10 per cent.
This was disclosed yesterday by the Country Director of Health Policy Plus, with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Mr. Onoriode Ezire, who noted that because of the low practice of contraceptive in the state, the population of Bauchi is likely to reach 26 million by 2050 as against the present population of about five million.
Development Communications Network (DEVCOMS), an NGO, has called for increased funding of family planning services to raise the level of contraceptive use to 36 per cent by 2018.
The organisation’s media specialist, Iliya Kure, said in a paper he presented to mark 2017 Safe Motherhood Week, that current national contraceptive commodities usage was slightly above 15 per cent.
The paper is entitled `Child spacing: Key strategy to reducing maternal death – time to act.’
NOT everyone thinks birth control is a blessing. Boko Haram, a jihadist group that terrorises north-eastern Nigeria, deems artificial contraception to be a product of infidel learning, and therefore forbidden. Its ideologues also believe that females should avoid school, marry early (sometimes while still children) and have lots of babies. In the dwindling areas the jihadists control, women have no choice.
In pursuance of diverse Family Planning methods as well as in curbing the spread of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI), the female condom has come to stay in Nigeria but regrettably, statistics has revealed that there is less than one per cent compliance and with the North recording almost zero per cent.
As the National Assembly (NASS) considers the 2017 budget, an item under the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) submission proposes to spend ₦915 million for the provision and distribution contraceptive commodities as part of counterpart fund.
This unethical waste of scarce resources is worrying and symptomatic of lack of strategic thinking that this administration is struggling to overcome in several area of policy administration.
Although Family Planning (FP) commodities are free in Lagos state, stakeholders in the health sector have said lack of consumables and poor state of FP clinics at the Primary Health Cares (PHCs) have led to the increase in maternal death in the state.
