NGO: Unplanned Pregnancy High

When commemorating World Contraceptive Day Country Director, Dr. David Ayres has revealed alarming statistics of the consequences of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies in the country.

Dr. David Ayres said there is need for more awareness in PNG regarding contraception, not only for family planning but also for protection from contracting Sexually Transmitted Infections.

The mission of Marie-Stopes PNG is ‘Children by Choice and not by Chance’. 

In 37 countries in which Marie-Stopes operates around the world, this is a clear focus for everything that they do. It is about enabling people or empowering them to have children by choice and not by chance.

This means that people have the power to choose when they have children, the number of children, and how far apart those children would be.

“In PNG approximately about 25 percent of pregnancies are unwanted. So when we say unplanned and an unwanted pregnancy is where you find that you’re pregnant but you really don’t want to be pregnant.

“So sometimes an unplanned pregnancy is still not unwanted but in about 25 percent of cases, a pregnancy is unwanted.” Dr. Ayres said.

As the largest Family Planning organization in PNG, Marie Stopes is providing training and counselling for women and men to make informed decisions to have families of their choice and to be safe.

“We also know that unplanned and unwanted pregnancies result in higher children mortality, and higher maternal mortality. Approximately 1 in 20 children born in PNG will die before their 5th birthday and approximately 1 in 125 women will die because of maternal causes. Therefore, those statistics are incredibly sobering,” said Dr. Ayres.

The question is what can we do to avoid that? How can we create a world where every birth is wanted? Dr. Ayres said when we say children by choice and not by chance, that’s when we are striving to create a world where every birth is wanted.

Author: 
Frieda Kana