Teenage pregnancy has been on the rise in Migori County in the recent years, prompting health practitioners to pursue family planning methods to try to reverse the trend.
According to health statistics availed in 2023, teenage pregnancies stood at 19 percent of all the pregnancy cases within the county.
The 2023 statistics also showed that only 69 percent of reproductive women in Migori have been using contraceptives.
Non-Governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Amref, Lwala Community Alliance, in collaboration with the government funded programme – ‘Beyond Zero Campaign’ – have in the past years managed to boost the contraceptive uptake from 61 percent in 2021 to 69 percent in 2023.
However, family planning (FP) methods have their share of critics. Anti-FP proponents say that these methods bring about significant stigma on those who use them from the community, and bear shared myths that continue to limit their uptake.
According to Irene Oyuga, a Health practitioner at Midoti Health facility in Suna East Sub County, the stigma around family planning among the community revolves around health and life endangerment, infertility that may lead to barrenness as well as encouraging sexual immorality among teenagers.
Oyuga however affirms that family planning is safe and has been scientifically proven to cause no harm to reproductive women or cause infertility among women.
Oyuga says that they have been engaging in education campaigns and raising awareness on family planning to enlighten and sensitise the community, especially the adolescents and youths, to understand and appreciate the importance of family planning and demystify the stigma and myths of these family planning methods.
Oyuga also disclosed that they have been training health practitioners to help guide youths and adolescents in the best possible usage of different family planning methods.
She explains that the introduction of integrated family planning services has enabled the health provider to guide youths and adolescents on safe family planning methods that have heavily reduced maternal deaths from postpartum bleeding, uterus rapture, and cervical tears among teenage girls.
“The womb of a teenage girl is not ready to conceive because biologically the uterus is not yet matured enough to carry a baby leading to maternal issues like uterus rapture and cervical tears that may lead to fistula,” added Oyuga.
Through health initiatives like Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI), a project by the Johns Hopkins Programme for International Education in Gynecology and Obstetrics (JHPIEGO), the Migori youth and adolescents have been benefiting from reproductive health services in form of sensitisation on family planning and other incentives to assist them in strategies for their future lives.
The TCI has also been able to mentor and capacity-build health promoters to empower them in sensitisation and awareness creation through well-labelled and printed aprons and t-shirts to make it easier for clients to identify and approach them for information.
Oyuga however urges all the health partners to continue targeting school-going children to aid in sharing the message to the teens to end the stigma that family planning brings sexual immorality among the adolescents and youths.
“Schools have closed for the long holiday that will last for more than two months and it’s the responsibility of everyone in the community to ensure that teenagers are protected to curb teenage pregnancies,” said Oyuga during a press interview in Migori town.
Lydia Atieno, a 21-year-old mother from Suna East Sub County, affirms that at one point, she had to drop out of Secondary school to attend to her child.
The mother of a five-year-old child acknowledges that family planning methods have significantly aided her family to plan well and avoid unnecessary pregnancies.
“Without family planning, I and my husband would be struggling to raise multiple children at such a young age with a financial burden to carry,” said Atieno with a broad smile.
But she bemoans that although she had heard about family planning before becoming pregnant while in school, she was hesitant to use it due to myths like the belief that it could damage her uterus and make her barren.
Maryanne Merix, a 21-year-old student aspiring to be an accountant in one of the local institutions in Migori, disclosed that her mother’s guidance on family planning methods enabled her to complete her secondary education and avoid teenage pregnancy, unlike her peers.
“I want to thank my mother for supporting me and informing me about family planning methods. Many of my friends and peers were not so lucky as a significant number of them dropped out of school due to teenage pregnancies,” stated Merix.
Another teenage victim, 23-year-old Irene Awino, became pregnant while in form two. She was, however, lucky to resume and complete her Fourth Form after giving birth.
Awino who is currently a volunteer social worker and a teenager mentor has been using family planning methods enabling her to have the right family size, an inspiration that has guided her to a career choice to advise teenagers about the negatives of being a teenage mother.
According to Dorothy Minyiri, the Director of Community Resource and Empowerment Organisation (Creamo), the majority of partners hide the information about contraceptive usage which at most times brings mistrust in marriage.
Minyiri says that it is important for partners to be open and communicate with each other for an agreeable method that suits the health of the young girls.
Creamo which deals with youth reproductive health and child protection has been educating young mothers in Migori on how to utilise family planning methods as well as giving them referrals where necessary.
Minyiri however encourages NGOs and development partners in the field of reproductive health to understand the target cohorts (14-24 years) they are supporting to ensure the usage of contraceptives becomes a success.
By Claire Atieno and George Agimba
