Family planning is key to reducing maternal deaths, Nigeria is still leading in maternal deaths globally with 512 women dying out of every 1,000 live births.
The Nigerian Minister of State for Health, Olorunnimbe Mamora stated this at the media launch of the National Family Planning Campaign by the Rotary Action Group for Reproductive, Maternal and Child Health (RMCH), in Abuja.
He said that adequate family planning has the capacity to reduce maternal deaths in the country by at least 30 per cent. 512 women die for every 100,000 live births in the country, a statistic he said is unacceptable.
“Family planning is an important intervention for promoting proper timing and spacing of pregnancies as well as assisting to achieve pregnancies where challenges exist.
“It also promotes maternal and child survival with a potential for reducing maternal and child mortality and morbidity by 30 per cent,” he said.
The minister noted that several challenges are impeding progress towards the achievement of Nigeria’s modern Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) of 27 per cent by the year 2024 and the most glaring of the challenges is poor funding for family planning.
Some of the challenges include inadequate financing for family planning at all levels or delayed release of Federal Government of Nigeria’s counterpart funds for the procurement of contraceptive commodities, inadequate funding for Monitoring and Supportive Supervision activities as well as poor state commitment and support for last mile distribution of Family Planning commodities.
Dr Mamora said that the ministry is collaborating with development partners to build synergy towards provision of quality family planning information services for prevention of unintended pregnancies as well as for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS.
He also said the media must get more deeply involved in disseminating accurate information on family planning issues to rapidly address the barriers to access to family planning information and services.
The Family Planning Media Campaign Launch could not have come at a better time as the country face challenges that threaten the health and social well-being of women, children, adolescent boys and girls and the vulnerable groups.
Also Speaking at the launch, the National Coordinator, Reproductive, Maternal and Child Health (RMCH), project, Mr. Emmanuel Lufadeju said that over 90 per cent of women of child bearing age are aware of the use of contraceptives but unfortunately only 15 percent of them are using it.
“So our campaign is directed to how to convince women of child bearing age to space their children, make them enjoy better quality by avoiding risky pregnancies.
“We must create high public awareness campaign to be able to convince our people that there is nothing wrong with contraceptives. They are approved and used all over the world,” Mr Lufadeju said.
He explained that most poor countries in the world are the ones having high populations hence the need for Nigeria to distance itself from this group.
