Ugandan men want more children than their wives

By Carol Natukunda

The ordinary Ugandan man wants more children than his wife, according to maternal health experts.

Speaking at a media workshop on maternal health recently, Dr. Wilfred Ochan an assistant representative with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) noted that several researches had proved that where a woman wanted to stop at 5.1 children, her husband normally insisted on an about  5.7 children.  

“Men are the pushers for more children, yet women want less number of children,” he said.

Referring to the traditional methods of family planning, Ochan stated: “It takes patience and understanding for a man to respect your safe days. When he, for instance, returns home very drunk, be very scared. You find women secretly using the contraceptives, because they are afraid of their husbands!”

He worried, that this was likely to pose a risk to a woman’s health.

“For a woman, they have so many issues on their mind, because they are the ones who carry the pregnancy. Every time a woman gets pregnant; she stands a choice of dying. Every pregnancy is a risk, no matter how healthy you are,” he added.

Ochan stressed that a lot of men in Africa place so much importance on cultural values over the health of the woman.

“Some men still believe in extending the clan. Or maybe he has only girls and is looking at the boy. I think we need to look more into this, and talk to the men as well,” Ochan stressed.

Ochan made the remarks while presenting a paper on Family Planning at a workshop organized by UNFPA. The workshop aimed at enhancing media advocacy and community mobilization to influence action on maternal health in Africa.

Statistics show that while there is a slight improvement in Uganda’s mortality ratios, a lot of women still continue to die needlessly due to preventable child birth related complications. Maternal mortality ratio has dropped to 310 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2010, from 435 deaths in 2006, translating to 4,300 maternal deaths every year, down from 6,000.

Access to Family Planning grew to 32% from 24% in 2006.

Ochan, however, noted that educated women often had the number of children they wanted because they had access to modern contraception.

He added that family planning is the most important fact that would accelerate in any nation’s rate of development. And the country would save about $112m, if everyone had access to family planning.

“A lot of money is spent on treating complications. This should stop. Family planning liberates you to negotiate, it sets you free.   If you space your births, the chance of dying is zero in the first place,” Ochan said.

Babihuga Nankunda, the executive director to the Communication for Development Foundation, said there was need to education men at the grassroots.

“One of the challenges is that the options for men are limited. It is either a condom or vasectomy. I know a man who went for a vasectomy and he was stigmatized. Some women, especially in polygamous family compete to have more children. It is a whole paradox,” noted Nankunda.