A GNA Feature by Albert Futukpor
Kpandai (N/R), July 27, GNA – Four and a half years ago (2017), Celestine (not her real name), who hails from Kpandai District of the Northern Region, became sexually active.
At the time, she was 13 years old.
The then Junior High School (JHS) one student knew nothing about protected sexual intercourse.
She said it was difficult for her to resist her sexual feelings after her first sexual intercourse. In less than a year, she became pregnant.
She was three months pregnant when her parents noticed it. A decision was taken to abort the baby. After a successful abortion, health workers educated Celestine and her parents on family planning and the available family planning methods.
After three months of considering the family planning methods, and observing how their daughter was carrying herself, the parents, having been witnesses to how teenage pregnancy had ruined the future of six other girls in the community, took the decision to avert such fate befalling their only daughter, who they wanted to attain the highest possible level as far as education was concerned.
They, after counselling, placed their daughter on the implant type of family planning to protect her from getting pregnant within a period of five years. Currently, Celestine is a form two student at a Senior High School (SHS) in the Northern Region.
Her parents told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that “Looking back, we believe we took the best decision to protect our daughter against teenage pregnancy, which could have made her drop out of school.”
They said from 2017 to date, a few girls in the area dropped out of JHS and SHS due to pregnancy and could not return to school. They said they were considering placing their daughter on another family planning method once the current method expired.
Joan (not her real name), who hails from Nanumba South District of the Northern Region, experienced her first menstruation in 2015 when she was 12 years old. Following this, after a few months, her parents sought advice and placed her on a family planning method that would protect her from getting pregnant within a period of 10 years.
Currently, Joan, who is now 19 years-old, is a final year SHS student in the region. Her parents told the GNA that their decision was influenced by the fact that a number of girls in the area became child and teenage mothers and could not continue their education.
They believed that by the time the family planning method would have expired, by which time their daughter would be 22 years-old, she would have gone far in terms of education and be better prepared to take decisions regarding her sexual and reproductive health.
Teenage pregnancy and school drop-out rate amongst girls
Teenage pregnancy, which has become the cause and effect of child marriage, is on the ascendancy in the country resulting in many girls dropping out of school. Factors such as poverty, parental neglect, curiosity, and access to technology amongst others have been blamed for the situation.
Statistics from the Ghana Health Services’ District Health Information Management System (DHIMS) showed that between 2016 and 2020, a total of 555,575 girls and teenagers aged 10 to 19 years in the country got pregnant.
Out of the figure, 13,444 were between the ages of 10 and 14, while 542,131 were between the ages of 15 to 19. The statistics showed that on average, a little over 112,800 teenagers got pregnant every year.
The government has been promoting abstinence to prevent teenage pregnancy amongst schoolgirls. It has also produced the Back-To-School Policy, which enables schoolchildren, especially girls, who drop out of school due to pregnancy, amongst other reasons, to re-enter school to continue their education. As a result of these measures, the Ghana Education Service recorded 2,720 girls returning to school after childbirth in the 2017/2018 academic year.
Also, the 2019 report from Educational Management Information System showed that 3,212 teenagers, after childbirth, returned to school in the 2018/2019 academic year. Per the statistics, the country is not making any headway in preventing teenage pregnancy to keep girls in school.
There is, therefore, a need to adopt radical measures to stop teenage pregnancy to ensure that girls remain in school.
The radical solution that parents and government must adopt
The government and parents want the best interest for their teenage girls, which is for them to remain in school. However, teenage pregnancy is working against it. The cost of teenage pregnancy cannot be quantified. Its effect on the girl, her family, community and the country is also indescribable. Teenage pregnancy has reached a crisis level given the high numbers recorded in the country every year.
There is, therefore, a need to adopt radical and practical measures to prevent it. In view of this, the government and parents must promote the adoption of long-acting reversible contraception methods or family planning methods that last up to 10 years amongst their sexually active teenage girls, who cannot abstain from sexual intercourse.
Placing such girls on a five-year and or up to a 10-year family planning method will be a game changer as it will completely resolve the problem of teenage pregnancy allowing girls to remain in school.
Last year, family planning services became one of the new coverage area subscribers could benefit from under the National Health Insurance Scheme. This has scrapped the cost element, which used to be a barrier to accessing such services.
Why make family planning services free but fail to design objective, well-structured birth control plan to encourage young girls who are core groups of vulnerable people, and who indeed need it, to take advantage of it to solve a major national problem?
The government and parents must take a cue from the experience of the two families, as narrated in the opening sentence above, and adopt this measure to protect their daughters against teenage pregnancy to keep them in school.
Stakeholders’ stance on contraception for teenage girls
Dr Hilarious Abiwu, Deputy Northern Regional Director of Health in-charge of Public Health emphasised that “As adolescents, abstinence is the golden standard, however, the fact remains that there are some people, who cannot abstain from sex until they marry. Such persons must be put on the right family planning techniques to prevent them from sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies.”
He endorsed placing adolescent girls on long-acting reversible contraception methods saying “If we use these injections to stop the girls from getting pregnant, I think it is helpful for them. For any girl who is born, the number of eggs that they will produce in their lifetime for babies is already there at birth. So, when a woman gets pregnant at 24 years, the egg that makes that girl get pregnant has been as old as 24 years. if the girl gets pregnant at 36 years, that egg is as old as 36 years.”
He added that “Now, every month, you have these eggs, which develop but only one will eventually come out during their menstruation. Now, when you put them on these hormones, most of these eggs go to sleep, they do not go through the cycle of developing and going back. So, if you put them on these hormones, it preserves their eggs. So, at the time when they are ready, and mature to have babies, they have freshly produced eggs that enhance the quality of the babies that are born. So, for me, any woman, who wants to go on hormones for as long as it does not give them any side effects, it will be a good approach to use.”
Mr. George Akanlu, Acting Country Director of Marie Stopes International Ghana, expressed need for family planning services to be available to all, saying “We should not have any adverse effects in our population. We should not have people getting pregnant and do not want the pregnancy and will have to go and terminate it unsafely or we should not have women, in their attempt to give birth, dying out of it.”
The way forward
Any practical solution to teenage pregnancy must be welcome news to all. The long-acting reversible contraception methods are the most effective types of contraception and are more than 99 per cent effective at preventing pregnancy.
For parents and the government, adopting this measure must be a matter of priority. This way, the education of girls will not be truncated. This will also help in the fight against maternal and child mortality, thereby enhancing the country’s quest to attain the Sustainable Development Goals in its entirety.
GNA