The govt needs to do more for women who want to plan and space their births but do not have access to modern contraceptives . ILLUSTRATION: JAMAL KHURSHID
Lahore - Tahira, a 28-year-old woman, living in a shanty town in Lahore, has given birth to five children in her eight years of marriage.
Her oldest child is a seven-year-old son and her youngest are three-year-old twins — a girl and a boy. Her second child died as an infant. After her third child, she compulsively went to a government health unit to get contraceptives — she did not want more.
“They placed an implant. But it reacted adversely with my system. I gained weight and started having severe body pain, so I decided to give up contraceptives altogether,” Tahira laughs and adds that the twins came after that incident.
Now the couple is facing financial conundrums — her husband earns a meager salary of Rs9,000 a month. Tahira has decided to get an operation; a treatment medically known as sterilisation. But she fears since her previous treatments did not go well.
Dr Muhammad Saeed, a gynecologist, explains about misconceptions about contraceptives in Pakistan.
No comments:
Post a Comment