COVID-19 Pandemic May Increase Unwanted Pregnancies Adversely – Bauchi Child Bearing Women Lament

BY ADEYEMI AKANJI, BAUCHI – In the face of the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic, Women of child bearing age said that unless something urgent is done, there are likely to be many unplanned pregnancies which will result into population explosion. 

The women, who are accessing Child birth spacing (CBS) services in Bauchi state said there is the urgent need for the concerned agencies to come to their aid by making consumables of their services available. 

One of the women, Mrs. Jummai Musa told journalists that COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected their means of accessing CBS services, adding that the out of stock consumables at the Ningi Health Clinic need to be addressed immediately.

Mrs Musa, a mother of seven told Bauchi Public Health Media Network that she started the practice of child birth spacing after her fourth child and since then, she has been enjoying the services but lament that since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the services have dropped drastically due to non availability of consumables. 

Another client, Mrs Fatima Ali, said that she was at the Clinic to access the services but was told that the consumables have been exhausted and will have to revisit on another date. 

The Ningi West Chairman of Ward Development Committee (WDC), Mamu Danlami commended the initiative for CBS which she said has really held to check indiscriminate child bearing in the area thereby improving the health of mother and child and by extension family reproductive health. 

She said that her committee is engaging on house to house sensitization campaign in order to encourage women of child bearing ages to come and access the CBS services saying that their efforts is paying off as more women are now coming on their own. 

The WDC Chairperson however lamented the out of stock of the consumables and COVID-19 pandemic, saying that it negatively affected the services as the number of clients has dropped drastically to five per week, a trend she said must stop. 

The Officer in Charge of the Ningi Town Health Clinic, Lauratu Mohammed Yaro said that before the COVID-19 pandemic, the CBS unit of the clinic used to have 100 clients accessing the services which has now dropped to 30 to 40 per month. 

On the COVID-19 pandemic, she said that most of the clients stopped coming to the clinic for fear of getting infected with the disease though she said that the clients have been taught how to observe the protective protocols.