‘Upsurge in cases of teenage pregnancies in Wa-West worrying’
The Wa-West District Director of Health Services, Mr Clifford Veng, has lamented what he describes as the upsurge in the cases of teenage pregnancies in the area over the past four years.
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Speaking in an interview on the sidelines of this year’s Kaka (Hippo) Festival at Wechiau, he attributed the upsurge in teenage pregnancies in the area since 2013 to the age-old socio-cultural practices prevailing there.
Socio-cultural practices
Some of such practices, he mentioned, included early marriages, betrothals and elopement of these young girls who are mostly sold for a bride price.
These age-old practices, he said, had been in existence, especially in the three regions of the north, and involved the abduction of underage girls between the ages of 10 and 19 years being forced into early marriages.
According to statistics in the six sub-health districts, a total of 1,753 teenage pregnancy cases were recorded between 2013 and 2016 with the highest figure of 493 cases recorded last year, followed by 456 cases in 2015 and 428 in 2014 and 376 in 2013
High maternal mortality
Mr Veng revealed that due to this, maternal mortality was also on the increase, with the district recording two such cases last year, and two recorded so far by June, this year.
He also touched on some of the local taboos and rituals associated with pregnant women in the area such as the restriction placed on them to visit health facilities during the early stages of their pregnancies for ante-natal care, negative perceptions about the consumption of certain meals and the refusal to have their babies delivered at the health facilities which impacted negatively on the health of the unborn child.
He, therefore, advised pregnant women to visit the health facilities at least eight times to ensure a safe delivery and after the birth of their children, adding that there had been a ban on deliveries by the Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) in the country since 2012 due to the availability of midwives to ensure the sound development and growth of their babies. Nursing mothers were also to continue with the trend by practising exclusive breast feeding of babies during the first six months.
School dropouts
He lamented that such pregnancies were on the increase among teenage girls aged between 10 and 19 years, who should have been in school to learn either a vocation or enrol for a course so as to break the poverty cycle in the region.
He said that also involved poor families who gave out their underage daughters to men who might be several years older than the girls for marriage, adding that reducing poverty in these modern times started with children.
TBAs
He said, while in 2012 they recorded 998 deliveries in health centres, as against 794 home deliveries, the figure increased the following year to 1,225 deliveries at health facilities while 493 delivered were recorded by the TBAs. He added that “the figures rose to 1,516 in 2014, 1,590 in 2015 and 1,733 last year although the home deliveries by the TBAs still remained significant with a total number of 1,252 during the period under review.”
Mr Veng said he had mounted an intensive education campaign for a closer look at such outmoded practices which impeded the development of the girl-child since all children everywhere had a right to education, adding that girls could grow to do what boys were known to do.
For his part, the UWR Director of Health Services, Dr Winfred Ofosu, who called for an end to some of these practices, noted that instead of bringing relief to the girls, the practices rather increased their poverty levels, domestic violence and sometimes led them to a fistula and premature deaths.