In celebration of this year’s World Contraception Day, the Rivers State Primary Healthcare Management Board (RSPHCMB) has charged women and couples of child bearing age to embrace the use of contraceptives to help them in planning their lives.
The Director, Community Health Services, RSPHCMB, Dr Joy Wihioka, gave this charge at a briefing to mark this year’s World Contraception Day, celebrated September 26 annually.
She noted that the idea of family planning was to “create an environment where every pregnancy is desired and wanted, and women live to nurture their children after childbirth”.
Wihioka also said the use of contraceptive has been proven to have “positive outcomes in reducing 44% maternal deaths, number of high risk and unwanted pregnancies, as well as preventing unsafe abortions”, which” she observed, was the leading cause of deaths among females.
According to her, “contraceptive use has been found to have important positive implications for maternal health, as well as adolescent health too.
“This is because the intervention helps avert approximately 44% of maternal deaths around the world by reducing the number of high-risk and unwanted pregnancies among citizens, thereby also preventing unsafe abortions which is a leading cause of death among females”.
Speaking on the theme for this year, “Breaking Myths”, Wihioka noted that contrary to beliefs that contraception was inimical to health, it was beneficial.
“It allows women to establish healthy birth-spacing practices whilst their bodies heal in between births: allows women an increased participation in the economic workforce; allows women to invest in themselves and their families, supporting the men to raise household income, especially in these slightly more difficult economic times”, she said.
She continued that the difficulty some women experience when they first up-take a family planning method is common.
She explained further that the methods involve introducing foreign bodies into the body, and the body of a healthy individual is expected to first reject it before acclimatising to it, adding that women should not be alarmed when faced with such inconveniences.
She advised that such women should go back to the health care centre where the service provider would adequately address the challenge.
“It is important for the woman or couple seeking to uptake a family planning method to first be counselled and tested at the primary healthcare facility”, she said.
Wihioka noted that since the establishment of RPHCMB in 2011, the Board had lived up to its mandate “to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate all Primary Health Care programmes and activities in Rivers State.
“It has also embarked on high impact interventions such as Reproductive Health/Family Planning to improve health outcomes for women and girls in the State.
“As we celebrate this year’s World Contraception Day with the theme, ‘Breaking Myths’, we join the global movement in celebrating every significant progress made in improving the health of women and girls by allowing them to decide and space their pregnancies.
“I encourage us as fellow citizens to take the COVID-19 vaccine and for couples who need FP services to visit any Primary Health Center near them, request and access routine family planning counseling and contraceptive services.
“Family planning methods remain safe and effective: there is a method that suits each Woman personally”, she concluded.

By: Tonye Nria-Dappa