Free medi-care for pregnant women would not lead to population explosion - Population Officer

Mr Kofi Abinah, Eastern Regional Population Officer, has denied that the 42.5 million pounds free medical care for pregnant women deal the President clinched with the British government might lead to birth explosion.

He said rather than increasing the fertility rate, the programme could lead to a drop in birth rates as it stresses on a comprehensive management of pregnancies that include mother and child survival, promotion of family planning and health practices.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Koforidua on Wednesday, Mr Abinah said the single most important factor affecting fertility was education.

“With more women entering school and not terminating it until the tertiary level, fertility levels are expected to decline further.”

He therefore sees the British government's grant as a good one that would help consolidate the efforts of organizations such as his which, over the years, has tried to both limit maternal mortality rates and reduce Ghana's population growth to a manageable level to promote a greater quality of life.

Mr Abinah said certain government policies such as on education have not only encouraged more women to enrol for formal education but they also helped women to delay the onset of child bearing.

He said while fertility rates in Ghana had seen some decline, the drop had been more dramatic in communities that have embraced education for both boys and girls.

Citing Koforidua as an example, he said the increasing number of girls aspiring to education up to the tertiary level had reduced the fecund level or the number of children a woman has during her lifetime to two, although the Eastern Regional average is still above four.

This, he said, was due to the fact that many couples were now preferring smaller family sizes, while many educated women were also deciding when or when not to have children.

Mr Abinah said information to suggest that much pregnancy-related deaths in Ghana were due to unmarried or teenage girls resorting to illegally terminate the pregnancy and the access to health facilities being granted them under the new regime might help eliminate such occurrences.

Officially, Ghana is said to have a maternal mortality rate of 240 women per 100,000 although others believe that the figure could be 500 deaths per every 100,000 women.