New contraceptives increase family planning options

Rwanda has received new contraceptive tools that will give women more options, especially in terms of finding the one which best matches the nature of their bodies for effective family planning. The newly introduced methods such as Hormonal Intra-uterine devices and Sayanna Press are part of reproductive health commodities handed over by the United Nations Sexual and Reproductive Health Agency (UNFPA) to Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) on March 22. The commodities worth more than $1.4 million comes as a contribution to the National Commodity Supply Plan of 2021-22. Dr. François-Régis Cyiza, the Director of Health Facility Unit in RBC, said that this will help in addressing the issue of women who sometimes failed to have proper family planning because their bodies rejected existing methods. “Womens bodies are different. Sometimes, they need to change contraceptive methods they have been using when purpose is no longer met. Instead of stopping family planning, they are encouraged to reach out for a more body-fitting method,” he said. According to a 2020 report of Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey, while modern contraceptive prevalence rates stood at 58 per cent, unmet need for family planning (FP) remained very high at 13.6 per cent for the past decade. It also stipulated that sexually active women have a higher demand for FP than currently married women, 87 per cent and 78 per cent respectively. From the same report, it is indicated that the fertility rate in Rwanda averaged 4.1 per woman; 3.4 in urban areas and 4.3 in rural areas. That means that on average an urban dweller is likely to deliver 3 children in her lifetime while a rural area resident could deliver 4 children. Noella Bigirimana, the Deputy Director-General of RBC, said these tools will increase availability as well as geographical and financial access with a focus on the unmet subgroup in the community. “We are making sure that this is available to adolescents and women who need them the most. Kwabena Asante-Ntiamoah, the UNFPA country representative, said this initiative aims at contributing to the prevention of unintended pregnancies and supports couples as well as individuals to protect their lives by deciding when they want to have children. He, however, pointed out that there is a need to ensure that available birth control methods are distributed adequately to the last mile of beneficiaries. Asante-Ntiamoah further commended Rwanda for being among few African countries to attain the commitment of allocating 15 per cent of national budget for achieving universal health coverage. The commitment was made during the Nairobi Summit on International Conference on Population and Development (ICDP) in 2019. For the continued rise in teenage pregnancy, where the number was 23,000 in 2021, activists claimed that restriction by law in accessing contraceptive methods was among contributing factors. Recently, the Minister of State in charge of Primary Healthcare, Dr. Lt. Tharcisse Mpunga, disclosed that the current law that requires adolescents to present their parents’ consent when requesting birth control services, including contraceptive methods, is currently being revised. Contraceptive methods can be classified as modern or traditional methods. Modern methods include female sterilization, male sterilization, the pill, the intrauterine device (IUD), injectables, implants, condoms, lactational amenorrhea method (LAM), while rhythm and withdrawal are considered traditional. Noella Bigirimana Deputy Director General of Rwanda Biomedical Center and UNFPA Country Representative Kwabena Asante-Ntiamoah during the handover of the commodities in Kigali on March 22. The handover ceremony took place in Kigali on March 22.

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New contraceptives increase family planning options