PNG fertility rate at concerning levels

Transcript

A reproductive health organisation in Papua New Guinea says the country's fertility rate of 4.4 percent needs to be urgently lowered.

Marie Stopes International says the very high rate is concerning especially given a recent survey indicating that a quarter of births were unwanted and up to 40 percent were unplanned.

Service Delivery Director Dr Edith Kariko says they are working with the government to provide better access to family planning.

She told Koro Vaka'uta the situation could be even worse than first thought.

EDITH KARIKO: We could under rate ourselves given that we have poor data surveillance in terms of our health systems in Papua New Guinea. So that could be an underestimate of what is really out there.

KORO VAKAUTA: In terms of that high fertility rate, how important is it to get that down?

EK: Yes, very important because it, especially given the number of children. The average woman of reproductive age in Papua New Guinea is having about four children. So what that means is the more children you have during childbirth you are prone to a lot of the complications that come along with it.

KV: Is your organisation working towards addressing that or helping the government?

EK: Yes our organisation has an impact in basically three areas and of which child fertility rate is one of them. So the first and foremost one we address is the contraceptive prevalence rate and that is the coverage of how many people are using family planning. And the second thing, most important thing is that contributes to the maternal mortality rate. That the less children a woman has she is less likely to be in a situation that can lead to maternal morbidity or mortality. Then the third thing is that of course one of the benefits of family planning is that it has an impact on child fertility rate given that a woman can space here child and also have children by choice.

KV: And in terms of that mortality rate do you know where that stands?

EK: Papua New Guinea is the second highest in this side of the region second to Afghanistan outside Sub-Saharan African countries.

KV: I also notice that your organisation did surveys and there were indications that up to a quarter of births were unwanted and up to 40 percent were unplanned. How do you address those sorts of figures?

EK: Basically now it is for us to create avenues for women to have access to information and knowledge that is through awareness and then not just having that information but also having the accessibility to the service.

KV: With the unwanted pregnancies that are happening do you see a prevalence of children that are pushed out to worse situations? Do they still maintain childcare for them even though they were unwanted?

EK: That is the issue it is really at the end of it is providing good quality of life for the child. And you find that with a lot of children that is not possible in a setting like Papua New Guinea especially with our majority of the population that live in rural areas. That is the issue there when, when an unwanted birth happens then you also have the quality of life being compromised.