Isolo PPFN clinic officer, Hassan clears air on misconceptions of family planning, says it helpful to nation’s budget planning
Isolo PPFN clinic officer, Hassan clears air on misconceptions of family planning, says it helpful to nation’s budget planning
By Damilola Kushimo
The Clinic Officer of Planned Parenthood Federation of Nigeria (PPFN), Isolo Chapter, Mrs. Roseline Hassan, has come out clear on the common misconceptions people harbour about family planning, as she claimed that it is not harmful but rather, more beneficial to health and humanity.
According to her, the exercise is key in strategic budgeting by a country, considering the available resources to be maximized for the benefit of all citizens.
Speaking with Echonews on “The benefits and misconceptions about family planning”, Hassan established that Family Planning or child-spacing as some people call it, is not harmful and poises no serious health threat on patients, rather it is of more benefit to women.
She said, “Family planning is not harmful though, there are two major methods, the modern and non-modern or traditional. We don’t do traditional here but we give enlightenment about the traditional as people might have been indulging in i, ignorantly.
“It’s not every modern method of family planning that has side effects. In fact, before we render any service to a client about family planning, we make sure that we counsel her very well so that when she begins experiencing those minor effects, she will know that it is as a result of the particular method of family planning she had undergone. She won’t be caught unaware because she would have been adequately counseled.
“All these side effects are common with hormonal. Hormonal method has some side effects which we counsel the woman about. Some effects like weight gain, weight loss, irregular menstrual cycle. And as soon as the complaint is lodged with us, we give appropriate medication and in no time the effect is gone. Family planning is not harmful; it is even of more benefits to women.”
Hassan made succinct analysis of the vast benefits child spacing entails, saying that apart from the economic advantage that it is commonly known for, family planning plays a pivotal role in tackling overpopulation in a country and even decrease crime rate.
She highlighted the four categories of beneficiaries of family planning which include the nation, the mother, the father and the infant baby.
Explaining the benefit of the exercise to the nation, the medical officer said that when the population of the country keeps growing and the rate of development is slowing down, there is a problem, stating that family planning would help the nation in strategic budgeting, considering the available resources and maximizing it for the benefit of all.
“Aside that, family planning helps proactively in reducing crime rates. When every child is catered for, no family is bearing more than they can look after, crime won’t be rampant by street urchins. To the woman, herself, when a woman spaces her child, she has time in between pregnancies, she will be able to rest, and her system will go back to the normal form (pre-pregnancy form).
“As we know, pregnancy brings a lot of changes to a woman and so, she needs that change to be resolved and for her to regain her strengths before another pregnancy. That will take about two years or thereabout. In a situation where there is no family planning, a woman can give birth twice in a year and in such situation there may be complications, especially during the delivery of the second child. Some health issues may arise. If she had done family planning, she would have had time to recover from the delivery of the first child and pursue other personal goals especially her career while she have time to adequately take care of the child(ren) she has already.
“If a woman gets pregnant two months after delivery, she will definitely stop breastfeeding the two-month-old baby, exposing the infant to malnutrition. The baby will not get adequate care because the mother now nurtures another pregnancy symptoms, the focused is solely on herself. In such way the child will be malnourished.”
As for the father, she explained that it helps the father financially as he would be able to save for the foreseeable future.
She said, “Probably he’s just getting things right after the christening of the recent child, if another pregnancy gets in, he’ll continue the spending spree, catering for the needs of the infants, the mother and the developing foetus. The benefits of family planning cannot be over stated.”
However, she stated that on timely basis, awareness are being created about family planning and child spacing programme, saying that the reactions of Isolo residents have been quite encouraging.
“We often create awareness about family planning. At times, we go to the nearby Aswani Market, not only to tell them the benefits of child spacing but also to clear the misconceptions about the programme. Family planning is of many benefits, it should be seen as a method of spacing children. It is not in any form harmful to the health,” she concluded.
