Pretoria - One million South Africans fall pregnant every year.
Of that number eight percent are girls below 18, 36 percent of whom will die because of complications due to childbirth.
These were the latest findings by the National Committee for Confidential Enquiries into maternal death. Every three years, it goes to all hospitals to collect files of all women who died during childbirth.
But that could change if the uptake of a contraceptive that works for three years is good.
The Subdermal Contraceptive Implant – a small, thin and flexible hormonal implant that is inserted under the skin of a woman’s upper arm – will be freely available to women across the country at public hospitals.
“Children are brought into this world by children. These girls contribute only eight percent to pregnancies. But when it comes to dying, they contribute 36 percent,” Minister of Health Dr Aaron Motsoaledi said.
“Why?” he asked. “Because they were not supposed to have fallen pregnant, they are too young to carry a baby, so it’s easy to die owing to pregnancy complications…”
Motsoaledi added: “It’s not just young girls – married women too. The committee found a lot of married women who also died during pregnancy and childbirth were told before pregnancy (by doctors) not to fall pregnant again because it would be a tough pregnancy.”
The minister was speaking at the National Department of Health’s launch of its national family planning campaign at Ethafeni Community Health Centre in Tembisa.
The explosion of teenage and unwanted pregnancies was linked to women and girls using abortion as a means of contraception – a “twisted logic”, he said.
The hormone in the implant prevented the release of an egg from the ovary, thus preventing pregnancy. However, women still needed to use condoms to prevent contracting HIV and Aids.
“It works like oral contraceptives but has a slow release over three years,” Motsoaledi said.
The implant – which costs R1 700 at a normal general practitioner – will be available at clinics by June. “We (the department) did not calculate any cost at all, because we were able to negotiate that we buy it at R92 a box.
“Because of its price, it falls within the normal budget for medicine in the department.”
Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini said the importance of family planning could not be overstated given that only 40 percent of children under five in the country lived with their mothers and 39 percent lived with both parents. “What you’ve brought us minister (Motsoaledi) is liberation. With the device, our girls can finish school and women can take charge of their lives and their bodies. It is empowering us,” she said.
A 34-year-old woman – who asked to remain anonymous – said she had her first child in 1998, when she was 18. She was one of the first to get the device inserted. “I had not planned to have my first child… parents in the old days didn’t talk about sex and pregnancy. I now have four children and do not want to make any mistakes. I now talk to my daughter that she too knows the consequences. I always tell her to finish school and not be like me.”
Pretoria News