Nozer Sherian, secretary general of the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies (FOGSI), said in New Delhi on Friday: ‘The Drug Controller General has increased the time limit of abortions to 63 days, i.e. nine weeks.’ In the last two years, 332,000 medical abortions were carried out, which show that if given a choice, women want to limit their families. ‘This is very important as around eight percent of maternal deaths take place due to unsafe abortions,’ he said.

FOGSI is promoting medical abortions along with Intrauterine Medical Devices (IUD) to help people plan their families. Hema Diwakar, president of FOGSI, said that women are now given a choice of post-placental IUD as soon as they give birth.

The family planning initiative taken up by the FOGSI and the Population Services International (PSI) is called ‘Pehel’. It is run mostly in urban slums. It covers 30 districts in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. Ten additional districts in these three states would be covered in the next phase. ‘Pehel Phase 3 will continue to complement the government’s efforts to reduce maternal mortality and increase the contraceptive prevalence rate,’ said Pritpal Marjara, director of PSI.

According to government data, every year about 78,000 women die during pregnancy, child birth or within 43 days of delivery in India.

Source: IANS

Justice Leila Seth, governing board member, Public Health Foundation, said education was the key solution to all the issues related to reproductive health and family planning.  ‘We must educate our young breed to overcome these problems,’ she said.

Keshav Desiraju, secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said if assured medical health was provided, it would lead to a decline in the family size. Anuradha Gupta, mission director, National Rural Health Mission, said: ‘With newfound courage, the government after a long time stood up. We’re not going to look at the past and we are going to look at the whole picture’.

Source: IANS

He also separately met Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Mukul Wasnik and members of the Planning Commission Friday.  While sexual health education has been adopted by most of the states across the country, barring six, the inclusion of pictorial depiction of human anatomy in text books had caused furore in the country’s parliament, Melesse observed. ”There are different tools for sex education and there are issues whether it should be so explicit. The government should frame the sexuality education policy in accordance with the education policy by evolving consensus of all concerned,” Melesse said.

“The vacuum created by not providing sex education can be dangerous. There is a lot of misinformation around sexual health, which needs to be cleared through age-appropriate and accurate education on sexuality,” Melesse added. While forced-sterilisation in the mid-1970s drew flak as a coercive method of population control, India’s population policy has moved on to become incentive-based and reproductive-health oriented through social schemes. ”India’s population policy went into a misrepresentation in the 1970s. There is need to structure voluntary service as it (family planning) cannot be imposed,” he added, during his three-day visit here. Melesse laid stress on a greater participation from private players and civil society to work with the government to make the population policy more accessible and affordable. 

“The issue is not about forcing population control, it is about leaving the choice of planning with the families. Education would be very crucial in India’s case,” Melesse added. The International Family Planning Summit in London will launch a global movement to give an additional 120 million women in the world’s poorest countries access to lifesaving family planning information, services and supplies by 2020. Melesse is the co-vice chair on behalf of civil society organisations of the global meet, expected to be the largest of its kind.

Source: IANS

Developed by researchers at Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health, Cyclebeads is based on the Standard Days Method (SDM) and is very effective in preventing unplanned pregnancies. The method is designed for women with cycles between 26 and 32 days. A woman has to put a rubber ring on the red bead the day she starts her period. Each day she moves the ring by one bead. If the ring is on a red or dark bead, there is little possibility of pregnancy and so the day is safe for intercourse.

If the ring is on a white bead — days 8 through 19 — there is a high possibility of becoming pregnant with unprotected intercourse. Cyclebeads are manufactured and distributed in the country through an agreement between HLL and Cycle Technologies (US), the original licensee. HLL is headquartered here. HLL Lifecare chairman and managing director M. Ayyappan said they are carrying on the manufacturing operations as per the specifications of Cycle Technologies.

“Cyclebeads, based on the Standard Days Method, not only empowers women but also engages men in family planning. We strongly believe that the product will actually complement the usage of condoms by enabling partners to know their fertile period and take precaution. Besides, this is an easy-to-use method which does not require resupplies, thereby improving access to family planning,” said Ayyappan. The Jharkhand government became the first state to introduce Cyclebeads and now has 40,000 users in the state.

Source: IANS