Plan for the number of children you can cater for- Experts

Medical experts have advised Nigerians to plan for the children they will have in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
They stated this at a training programme organized by the Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI) for the Ward Health Committee (WHC) members in Kosofe, Alimosho and Agege Local Government Areas of Lagos State to create more awareness on family planning in their various communities.

Speaking with Daily Times, the WHC Chairperson for Sango-Agege ward, Mrs. Fausat Sani said, there’s a lot of misconception about family planning and people need to get the right message, “there are some people who don’t believe in it, some have religious belief about it but family planning is to plan for the number of children you can cater for. Gone are the days when we live everything to chances, now survival of the children is high.
‘If they get what they are supposed to get and they are immunized at the appropriate age, their survival is sure but when you have too many, there comes poverty, they are not fed properly, the nutrition is poor and they are not able to attain their potential.”
She said enlightening the community leaders will help propagate the right message to the people they live with.
“The community leaders are there with the community, they are in the community with the people and they will in turn pass the right information to the people on family planning.”
Adding, she said, “If you plan your family, poverty is out of it, if you are able to get rid of poverty, every other thing comes to fall in place, you can feed your children, send them to your desired school, and you’re sure of sustaining them and have a bright future.”
Also speaking, the state team leader for Lagos NURHI Lagos, Dr Edun Omasanjuwa said, research has shown that, with family planning, one can save about 30% of women who would have died from pregnancy related complications.
“In Nigeria, we have about 40,000 women dying every year due to pregnancy related complications but if we implement the family planning methods, we would save 30% of those people, so in every 10 women, we can save about 3 of them.”
One of the trainees, Mr Olusegun Adebayo said, as a health custodian bridging the gap between the Primary Health Centre and the Local Government authority, he will ensure he mobilizes people to utilize the PHC facility, especially on family planning for the betterment of the people.
“I will continue to inform our people about the importance of family planning
“Family planning is not about preventing them from having children or telling them the number of children to have but to space their children in order to improve their standard of living.
“When the family is planned, we can avoid poverty in our society, help development in our family and the society at large. Most of the time, our community people don’t know about family planning until they are educated, so I believe we have to keep talking to the people.”