The society made the call in a statement signed by its
Coordinator, Dr Morenike Ukpong, on Wednesday in Lagos in commemoration
of the World Contraceptives Day marked annually on Sept, 26.
According to her, this critical benefit of contraception use is of importance to adolescents in Nigeria, especially female adolescents.
“Female adolescents are more at risk of having unintended pregnancies and unwanted births which can lead to nonpsychotic major depression, feelings of powerlessness, and a reduction in overall physical health.
“For adolescents who have unintended pregnancies, school drop-out and complications of illegally induced abortion are some of the complications reported with dare consequences.
“Pregnant adolescents also have greater risks than adults for s3xually transmitted infections, especially HIV-1 infection,’’ she said.
She said that Nigeria had the highest rates of adolescent fertility in sub-Saharan Africa as over 900,000 births to adolescent occurred annually.
The coordinator said also, that 150 out of every 1,000 women who gave birth in the country were 19 years old or under.
Ukpong said that one major challenge to contraception access and promotion was its limitation to married women.
“Its association with Family Planning (FP) makes the public, community and healthcare providers think of contraception for use only among couples who are thinking of spacing children.
“While there are clear guidelines and programmes that promote access of women to contraception, there are conflicting guidelines on access and programmes for s3xually active adolescents to contraception.
“Family planning centres also have limited competency to education and support adolescents’ use of contraception.
“Finally, the concept of parental consent prior to s3xually active adolescents’ access to contraception creates a barrier to access of adolescent to education and uptake of contraception services,’’ she said.
She, therefore, advised the government to develop policies and clear guidelines that would promote access of adolescents to contraception in Nigeria.
The coordinator also urged the government to support the conduct of more implementation research to identify how adolescents’ access to contraception could be improved in ways that were culturally sensitive.
“Studies have shown that delaying adolescent births can significantly lower population growth rates, potentially generating broad economic and social benefits, in addition to improving the health of adolescents.
“The government needs to explore how to enhance this benefit of preventing unwanted pregnancies among adolescents.
“Also, the competency of healthcare providers to provide contraceptives to adolescents need to be built,’’ she said.
Ukpong noted that Nigeria was a signatory to the Family Planning (FP) 2020 targets.
According to her, the country made a commitment at the 2012 London Summit on FP to achieve a modern contraceptive rate of 27 per cent among all women by 2020 and updated this commitment in 2017.
She said: “It, however, did not make clear statements on promoting access of adolescents to contraception within its framework for increasing contraceptive rates.
“The FP2020 target for Nigeria should develop targets for contractive access by adolescents, and this targets should be monitored by national and international monitors.’’
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