Abortion among married women is currently on the rise in Nigeria, the Society for Family Health (SFH), has said.
Although SFH did not cite any survey or study to back its conclusion, it attributed the development to the rise in inflation and love for their families.
The nonprofit, non-political, non-governmental organisation which intervenes in various health fields, added that many married women undertake to abort pregnancies without the knowledge of their husbands.
SFH’s Country Social and Behaviour Change Coordinator, Delivering Innovation in Self-Care (DISC), Michael Titus, made these known in Minna, Niger State yesterday. The event was a dissemination meeting of Niger State Family Planning/DMPA-SC performance of the Delivering Innovation in Self-Care (DISC).
Titus said that married women abort because they want to minimise the negative economic impact of having additional children on their families.
His words: “Abortion among married women is something that is on the rise. For married women, it is obvious because our men are shying away from the fact that family planning uptake is something that is important and beneficial to them and their families.
“Look at the situation in the country, we have so many issues like inflation which is causing the purchasing power of each family to reduce, especially now that the cost of buying pampers and paying school fees are on the rise.
“Women love their families, they love their husbands, they don’t want the situation whereby the purchasing power of the family declines.
‘’So, you find women who go behind to do the abortion. They don’t want a situation whereby they get pregnant again as another child added to the number they have would be seen as burdensome on the family and that is why abortion among married women is found be rising.”
Titus said that some family planning methods, including Subcutaneous depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA-SC) self-injectable contraception, are readily available for married women who desire to space their children.
According to him, 27,000 women in Niger State embraced the self-injection method of birth control in the first quarter of this year while 194,700 women accepted the use of the Subcutaneous depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA-SC) self-injectable contraception in the past 33 months.
He added: “Over 300 percent growth in self-injection rate in the state shows that 52 of every 100 women who opt DMPA- SC as their method of choice are self-injecting successfully under the supervision of health providers.”
The state’s Primary Healthcare Commissioner, Dr. Ibrahim Dangana, said the Delivering Innovation in Self-care (DISC) project was being implemented by the state and the SFH.
Dangana, who was represented by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Dr Abdullahi Imam, said: “The results we have achieved in these past 33 months shows that the self-injectable method is acceptable to a large number of women that were engaged and they have also given testimonies to how it helped them to space their families and improve their reproductive health.
“For the state, we support any method or solutions that can improve the lives of our women. The essence of family planning service is to allow women to space their children so that they can have as many as they want when they want it. ‘’We intend to ask the partners to expand this service to other local government areas and we also intend to provide a lot of funds for healthcare workers to be trained in counseling and in the delivery of self-care service.”
