THE UNMET NEED FOR FAMILY PLANNING

Family planning allows individuals and couples to anticipate and attain their desired number of children and the spacing and timing of their births. It is achieved through use of contraceptive methods and the treatment of involuntary infertility. A woman’s ability to space and limit her pregnancies has a direct impact on her health and well-being as well as on the outcome of each pregnancy (WHO, 2014).

I was compelled to write about family planning in our series of nomadic health care because of the story of Khadija, a 30 years old young woman, with 6 kids and two spontaneous abortions within a span of 5 months! Scary huh! Welcome to Sanaag region of Somaliland. What inspired me is her willingness to have any form of family planning as she is fed up with unplanned pregnancy. Her husband, Awke, has also the same view about the issue and was excited when I told him that I can give them several options of contraception to choose from.

I was also frustrated by the fact that no one wanted to listen to me when it comes to family planning despite the fact that there was a tremendous unmet need for family planning among the nomadic pastoralists in Sanaag region. Actually I was kind of relieved to have finally found a couple that is ready to have a control of when to have a pregnancy!

I always find young mothers with very many kids with poor spacing of children. Most of them are not even aware if they are pregnant by the time they come to my office. Almost all of these young mothers would like to delay their next pregnancy by two or more years but are very skeptical of any contraceptive method. They believe it affects their fertility and may make them infertile forever! Others think that family planning methods may affect their health.

I am not in favour of contraception aimed at controlling the population growth in fear of limited resources on planet earth, but I am much inclined to have a solution to the unmet need for child spacing to have a healthy community. Lack of proper family planning is not only affecting the mother’s health but equally is detrimental to the child health status. It is a proven fact, that family planning directly reduces maternal mortality and infant mortality.

Family planning is also an essential component in achieving reduction of poverty, gender equality as well as allowing woman to attain their career goals. It also reduces both criminal and spontaneous abortions.

There are many forms of contraception which can be acceptable to the Somali community. One may face many challenges in implementing unnatural methods but in my experience I came to realize that most of the Somali couples are willing to try the natural family planning such as the coitus enteruptus  and rhythm methods. 
In the future, it will be very necessary to have a national plan based on national policy on reproductive health with special emphasis on family planning.

Dr. Mohamed Bobe,
Hingalool, Sanaag.
#NomadicHealthCare#252HealthCare.