The President Emeritus Association for Reproductive and Family Health (ARFH) Prof. Oladapo Ladipo has described family planning as preventive medicine.
Ladipo said this Wednesday during a Media Roundtable ahead of the 7th Nigeria Family Planning Conference 2022 in Abuja with the theme “Journey to 2030: The Opportunities Ahead.”
He said family planning is a preventive intervention for not only unwanted pregnancy but unsafe abortion and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs).
He added that “family planning is not imported by the white world into Africa but had been in practice by ancient Africans.
“Our fathers practised traditional and natural methods of absentia and other methods to engender child spacing.
“The modern methods of contraceptives today are improvement on those traditional and natural methods.”
The Family Planning expert, who called for increased uptake of family planning methods, said “it promotes quality
reproduction than quantity reproduction.”
Dr Ejike Oji, the Chairman, Technical Management Committee, Association for the Advancement of Family Planning
(AAFP), said that fertility reduction is the key to addressing demographic crisis.
Oji, who commended President Muhammadu Buhari for launching the Revised National Population Policy (NPP) to
fast track population management, said increased enlightenment would help more couples to take up family planning methods.
Ms Margaret Edison, the Director, Department of Population Management, National Population Commission (NPC),
expressed the commitment of the population commission to issues of population management.
Edison who reiterated call for reduction in fertility rate, said that it has adverse effects on the quality of education, economy and others.
Dr Amina Dorayi, the Country Director of Pathfinder International, said that the organisation mobilised about N20.5 billion
at the sub-national level for family planning.
Dorayi, who was represented by Mr Bayo Ewuola from the international organisation, said the group achieved this with Advanced
Family Planning (AFP) programme in collaboration with the media and traditional rulers.
Ms Margaret Bolaji-Adegbola, the Executive Director, Stand With the Girl Initiative (SWAG), emphasised the imperatives of
involving young people in family planning processing.
Bolaji-Adegbola said active engagement of young people into family planning would engender informed decisions needed to prevent unsafe abortions.
She called for collaboration among stakeholders “to dismantle biases and prejudices impeding young people access to
family planning.”
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), family planning is the ability of individuals and couples to anticipate and attain
their desired number of children and the spacing and timing of their births.
It is achieved through the use of contraceptive methods and the treatment of involuntary infertility and enables a woman to determine
the time, spacing, and frequency of pregnancy with a range of methods for preventing or expelling conception.
