Adewale Banjo

Executive Secretary, Ogun State Primary Healthcare Development Board, Elijah Ogunsola, has said maternal mortality can best be averted through different methods of family planning.

Ogunsola made this known during a workshop organised by the state Primary Health Care Development Board, in collaboration with a Development Partner, The Challenge Initiative (TCI), in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital.

He said the essence of the workshop was to come up with a strategic plan for social behavioural change communication, to improve on the Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) in the state.

The executive secretary said the current administration had made available different platforms, such as the Social Behavioural Change Communication Committee, to identify the best communication strategy, towards increasing the effectiveness of family planning.

Ogunsola debunked some of the problems affecting family planning, including different myths and misconceptions, as some women believed that if they take up family planning they would develop one health challenge or the other.

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He said the importance of coming together of all stakeholders was to channel a communication strategy on how to better improve on the CPR of the state.

Ogunsola highlighted some of the advantages of family planning, to include averting unnecessary abortion of pregnancies, prolonging the life of mothers, allowing couple to space children for better economic and social life without limiting the numbers of children they can have.

He commended the efforts of the state government at ensuring that commodities are made available at all times, in all primary healthcare facilities across the state, as well as creating an enabling environment for partners and investors in the state.

Also, the programme Coordinator, Mrs Adebusola Oyeyemi, said the strategic plan was like a chart in the course of family planning communication in Ogun, adding that it would be a guide for all stakeholders as well as development partners in the future.

In their separate remarks, participants at the workshop, Messrs Omotunde Arisekola, Adetokunbo Salami and Miss Bólúwatife Fajobi opined that women of child  bearing age required the right knowledge that must be factual as well as comprehensive, noting that the workshop was apt as it would ensure there was  a roadmap that would encourage the adoption and uptake of family planning in the state.