Govt advises mothers to embrace modern family planning methods
Youth participate in a march during the opening ceremony of the Youth Pre-Family Conference in Kampala in 2017. The event aimed at sensitising youth about family planning, and access to responsive health services. PHOTO | COURTESY
What you need to know:
- The Kabarole health educator, Ms Catherine Kemigabo, said the implementation of modern family planning has received a negative response from some communities who think that it causes cancer and infertility among women.
The government has appealed to the public to embrace modern family planning methods to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
The assistant commissioner in charge of reproductive and infant health in the Ministry of Health, Dr Richard Mugahi, said some people have continued to use traditional methods which are ineffective, leading to maternal deaths among adolescents.
“Many adolescents aged between 15 and 24 are getting unwanted pregnancies as a result of using unreliable methods. Others have sought the services of traditional birth attendants and they end up dying while giving birth,” Dr Mugahi told journalists in Kabarole District on Sunday.
“Others use herbs while carrying out abortion. If they can use modern family planning methods, they can’t die. As the Ministry of Health, we want a healthy population, which is developmental,” he added.
Dr Mugahi said 12.9 percent of people in Tooro use traditional methods of family planning while at the national level, four out of 10 adolescent girls who die while giving birth have unwanted pregnancies.
Dr Mugahi appealed to district, cultural and religious leaders to advise the public to embrace different modern family planning methods that include IUDs, condom, implants, injections, and pills, among others.
The service provider in-charge, reproductive health Uganda, Fort Portal branch, Ms Pudens Tayebwa, said some people have a misconception about some modern family planning methods.
She also said some health workers do not have enough knowledge about modern methods, adding that they are now extending outreach programmes to communities to ensure that people get services.
The acting Kitagwenda District health officer, Dr Christine Karungi, said in some cases, health facilities run out of family planning kits which forces people to resort to traditional methods.
“Sometimes we order many family planning kits from Joint Medical Stores and we receive less and you have a health centre receiving 15 kits of IUDs or implants yet there are many mothers who want them,” Dr Karungi said.
The Kabarole health educator, Ms Catherine Kemigabo, said the implementation of modern family planning has received a negative response from some communities who think that it causes cancer and infertility among women.
“When we try to educate people about family planning we get some resistance where some people are saying that it causes cancer among the women. Those who use traditional methods at times fail to work,” Ms Kemigabo said.
Cases of unwanted pregnancies
A baseline survey conducted by Promotion Monitoring Action under Makerere University School of public health in 2020, shows that 44 percent of women get unwanted pregnancy in Uganda because they don’t use family planning methods. The report shows that 70 percent of adolescent girls between 15 and 19 years in rural areas get unwanted pregnancies while 51.6 percent of women are in urban areas. It also shows that two out of five women who got pregnant were unwanted.
