‘Family planning can avert 400,000 deaths yearly in Nigeria’

Executive Director, Primary Healthcare management Board, Dr Lanre Abass has solicited the support of media practitioners to make family planning a norm, saying there is evidence that it can avert about 400,000 deaths in Nigeria alone.

Dr Abass speaking at the annual media forum by DEVcom on Family Planning/Childbirth Spacing in collaboration with Oyo State Ministry of Health in Ibadan, stated that family planning can help prevent high risk pregnancies, decrease the complication of pregnancy as well as the stress that may be associated with it.

The Executive Secretary, who spoke through the state’s Family planning coordinator, Mrs Adeola Awakan declared that women that have taken to family planning also stand to reduce their risk of unplanned pregnancies, abortions and the complications arising from there.

He added, “The ugly trend of a child giving birth to child will be prevented. It confers the dual prevention/protection of unwanted child/pregnancies and HIV/AIDS/STI infections.”

Dr Abass, who remarked that child spacing also will ensure that Nigeria can attain the Sustainable Development Goal 3 set to  ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, declared that benefits of family planning also extends to their husbands, children and the nation at large.

While assuring that there is always an appropriate contraceptive for each couple from the range of available methods in Nigeria, he decried Nigeria’s low contraceptive prevalence rate, saying it also had a great influence on the nation’s maternal mortality as well as total fertility rate.

“This suggests a high unmet contraceptive need and the high number of children per family in some cases,” he stated.

Dr Abass, noting that Nigeria’s low contraceptive prevalence rate had contributed to the nation’s rapid population growth, stated that this growth has affected the quality of life and made achievement of socio-economic development goals difficult.

Earlier, NURHI State Team Leader in Ibadan, Mrs Stella Akinso stated the need for media practitioners to support efforts to make family planning a norm in Nigeria.

Akinso, who spoke through Dr Oluwakemi Anne-Sigbeku added, “It is a critical issue when a woman dies due to pregnancy and pregnancy related issues. We need the media to help propagate that family planning need to become a norm in our society.”