Akena+, SFH, ARFH, urge women to embrace family planning methods

By Cyprian Ajah

A nongovernmental organisation, NGO, Akena+Health in collaboration with Society for Family Health, SFH and Association of Reproductive Family Health, ARFH, have called on Nigerian women and girls to adopt different contraception methods, especially, Depot-Medroxyprogesterone Acetate-Sub Cutaneous, DMPA-SC method, to reduce mortality, ensure convinient child spacing and unwanted pregnancies.

Akena+Health made the appeal during the implementation of research dissemination meeting for the research programme, Innovation for Choice and Autonomy, ICAN, held in Enugu with women and service providers, said that they have trained women and health workers on the needs and benefits of safe family planning methods.

Addressing the participants at the meeting held at Bayview Hotel and Suite, Enugu on Wednesday, the ICAN Programme Manager, Mrs Chioma Okoli, said that through the research they followed women for the past four years in the three states of Nigeria – Lagos, Enugu and Plateau – “in our journey towards obtaining and using different methods of coontraception.

“She said that in their research they looked at the quality of counsels the women were given when they approached different health facilities, adding that, “we did that and we shared the results with the stakeholders today.

“Speaking specifically about DMPA-SC method of coontraception, which is self-inject, Okoli said that they reached between 800 to 1000 women and talked with providers, and users in both public and private health facilities, pointing out that in Enugu State, they reached over 500 women and providers.

The Executive Secretary, Enugu State Primary Healthcare Centre, Dr. Ifeyinwa Ani-Osheku, represented by the state Coordinator, Family Planning, Mrs Maureen Nwankwo, commended Akena+ Health who used their ICAN research to reach both providers and women in the state on the importance of safe family planning methods such as the DMPA-SC.

Ani-Osheku said that Akena+ Health had carried out their research in the past years and discovered that Enugu State was doing well in the area of using DMPA-SC method of coontraception, pointing out that it was a misconception that DMPA-SC and other family planning methods cause infertility.

The Family Planning Coordinator for Ezeagu local government area of Enugu State, one of the two local governments chosen for the ICAN research, Mrs Celina Idoko, said that Ezeagu women have been sensitised on the importance of family planning methods especially that of DMPA-SC. 

“Ezeagu women have known that through family planning, they space their children and “give birth by choice and not by chance.”Idoko said that gone were the days when women gave birth like rats, as many as ten children not considering their upbringing. 

“They have known the importance of spacing their children so that they can give birth to the children they can cater for, not giving birth to ten and twelve children,” she said.

The dissemination meeting was attended by the stakeholders from the Ministry of Health, Pharmaceautical Society among others.