Pakistan is a country lagging behind its neighbours in successful family planning, population control and maternal mortality rate. It is said that by 2025, which is 8 years away, the population will increase to 227 million. That is a scary number considering that the country can barely function with the current population. It is the government's responsibility to curb the massive increase in population.
The simplest solution will be to set up effective family planning centers, but even the simplest solution in Pakistan comes with its own obstacles. Family planning in Pakistan faces a lot of skepticism by the general public. The government would have to raise awareness for the benefits of family planning to dispel the skepticism. The best way to achieve this would be to present people with hard facts.
The government has set up family planning centers but unfortunately these are few in number as compared to the population that needs these services. Adding in the fact, that these family planning centers are government run, they operate at inconvenient hours and do little to help an average person.
The World Health Organization (WHO) did a study and found that the infant mortality rate in 2011 was 65.1 deaths per 1,000 live births as compared to 90 deaths per 1,000 lives in 1999. The maternal rate stood at 276 deaths per 100,000 women. The reasoning behind such a high mortality rate is the fact many mothers in the country were so malnourished that they lacked the ability to nourish their child.
Professor Dr Anita Zaidi, Chairperson for the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health at AKUH said that family planning is not only about population control but also about wanting healthy mothers and children. Dr Anita was disgusted at the number of infant mortality during the first year of birth and about 2/3 died during the first months of being alive.
With family planning the mortality rate will steadily decrease and bring about a change in the population growth rate. The problem facing Pakistan today is that the vast majority of the population is illiterate. Hence, the misconception that family planning is a way to control the population instead of helping people deliver healthy newborns is false.
If the misconception that family planning is simply about population control is dispelled, more and more people in the country will seek help from family planning centers. The people will be educated about how to properly nurture their new born and if the mother is healthy and capable of child bearing. Fortunately a few NGO's in Pakistan have already taken an initiative to help educate the masses on family planning. DKT, an international social marketing franchise, has numerous clinics set up around Pakistan. They provide various services such as family planning to educate the masses on proper use of contraceptives as well as the risks that follow with not properly spacing births of new born into the family.
DKT also educates and trains midwives to help families in rural parts of Pakistan where medical services are either nonexistent or are in a sad state of affairs. DKT teaches the midwives how to help patients who come to them using tried and tested methods as well as adhering to a certain standard of hygiene.-PR
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