By Anthony Adongo Apubeo
Bolgatanga, Aug. 9, GNA – Ms Mary Azika, a Midwife at the Bolgatanga Municipal Health Directorate in the Upper East Region, has warned against the excessive use of emergency contraceptive pills, as a family planning method and means of preventing unplanned pregnancies.
She said the emergency contraceptive pills had long-term side effects on the fertility of women when abused and called on the youth to desist from the act.
Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga, the Midwife noted that the excessive use of emergency contraceptive pills was mostly among adolescents who engaged in unprotected sex.
She said the practice was on the increase in the region and it was worrying and called for a stakeholder approach to collectively address it to promote adolescent health and wellbeing.
Ms Azika explained that it was risky for one to take the pills more than three times in a year but most of the youth did not know and had been taking it anytime they had unprotected sexual intercourse.
“We have seen that most of our adolescents are using it as a family planning method which of course it is not, it is only to be taken in emergency cases.
“The men, boys, and the girls themselves have them, so anytime they have sex that is what they take, so you can imagine having sex twice in a week or thrice in a month and taking these emergency pills, they will have childbearing problems in future.
“For instance, there is one lady who has childbearing issues and has confessed to me that she has been taking the pills since 2013,” she said.
Ms Azika noted that apart from encouraging the youth to abstain from sex, it was imperative to educate them on safe sex to ensure that the sexually active ones use the recommended contraceptives such as condoms to prevent pregnancy and other complications.
She said, “condom will prevent them from getting pregnant and protect them against Sexually Transmitted Infections, including HIV/AIDS, and it is also better we educate them on the hormonal changes in their bodies as they grow that push them to have the feeling to have sex so that they will know how to deal with these desires when they arise.”
The Midwife said many of the youth feared getting pregnant more than contracting STIs and that was why they had resorted to using emergency contraceptive pills and engaging in unprotected sex and urged stakeholders to help educate the youth to realise the negative consequences of unplanned pregnancy.
“It is worrying and some married women even use emergency contraceptive pills as family planning, it is very dangerous and they do not know, so we need the education to help address the problem,” she added.
GNA