According to the Uganda Census 2014 report, the total fertility rate in Uganda is at 5.8 births per woman. This is a decrease from what we had in 1991 when it was at 7.1 births per woman. Although this is good news, 5.8 is still relatively high.
According to indexmundi.com, a website that compiles the fertility rates globally, we are the fifth most fertile country. Such rates mean we ought to try and control the number of children women produce so that families are able to take care of all the children they have and at the very least provide the basic needs including proper nutrition, education and others. This means all women should be aware of the contraceptive alternatives out there and pick those that suit them after medical advice.
However, that is still not happening, at least not at the rate that it needs to.
The 2011 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) shows that more than four in 10 births are unplanned. According to a Guttmacher Institute report, such unplanned pregnancies lead to high levels of unplanned births, unsafe abortion, and maternal injury and death.
The Guttmacher report also states that married women’s use of modern contraceptives has increased significantly in recent years, nearly doubling (from 14 per cent to 26 per cent) between 2000 and 2011. However, the use of modern contraceptives remains too low to address the high rate of unintended pregnancy. The report adds that contraceptive use had not risen between 2000 and 2011 among sexually active unmarried women—38 per cent were using a modern contraceptive method in 2000, and the same proportion was doing so in 2011.
These reports show that more needs to be done to ensure women are aware of the facts of contraception, have access to them and feel comfortable enough to use them. Outreaches, counselling sessions and the like should be done at schools of higher learning such as universities, and polytechnic colleges because many young women become sexually active at an early age. Methods of family planning should be taught to both young men and women as early as when they are 18 years old, after all, the Constitution states that once one has reached that age, they are an adult and will be treated as such. There also needs to be accessibility of different contraceptives, especially at medical centres.
As long as people continue to have sexual relations without any form of contraception, we will continue to have many abortions, and people struggling to raise big families. Therefore, more ought to be done improve contraceptive use.
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