“We’re pregnant!” is just something that gets my goat. As a biological mother of three sons, I - and I alone - was pregnant. Mike was amazingly supportive during the hardships of pregnancy, but he did not throw up for months, grow an enormous belly, have gestational diabetes, not sleep or have indigestion or need to urinate every 10 mins just to name a few of the “pleasantries of a pregnant Kathleen.” During labor, he was with me holding my hand, being my coach, never leaving my side…but he did not have contractions for hours on end or push three babies out of his body, and then try to recover from the tears, the loss of abdomen muscle tone, and other unspeakable effects of giving birth.
Therefore, women get to choose. In Nicaragua, abortion is illegal even including therapeutic abortions, which means…in this blog abortion is NOT in discussion, but birth control is. Family planning is the topic.
When we moved to Nicaragua 25 years ago the birth rate was more than 4 children per woman. In 2018, the fertility rate was down to 1.87 per woman.* It may continue to drop overall, but teen pregnancy remains the highest in Latin America and the Caribbean: in Nicaragua, 1 in 4 teenage girls gets pregnant.**
Last week we had a volunteer ob/gyn*** working in our clinic. He had a “slip of a girl" come in for a birth control implant. She was 16 years old and had two children already… the youngest was only 12 days old!
Three years ago we started a project to provide birth control implants - with many of you helping to purchase the implants. We had been providing IUDs, birth control pills and injections, but implants which last 3 years are a much safer choice for Nicaraguan teen girls, who also are at a higher risk of rape and incest.
Those first implants we put in women’s and girls’ arms 3 years ago are close to their effectiveness expiration date, so in addition all the new women and girls wanting implants, we need to remove the old ones and place new ones… we are anticipating doubling our need for long-acting reversible contraceptives.
Pregnancies are physically as well as mentally hard on teenagers, not to mention the challenges of raising a baby when the mom is just a child herself. These pregnancies are a higher risk for babies as well. Teen girls and women are the ones who should choose when they have a child. Education, wider opportunities, and eliminating poverty are crucial factors impacting that choice, as well as good, safe birth control methods.
We try to do all of that:
- educating women and girls
- showing girls a bigger world through Las Lobas group
- working to end poverty through all our projects
____________________
*http://www.geoba.se/country.php?cc=NI&year=2018
**http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/118641557834881604/Tackling-Teenage-Pregnancy-by-Enhancing-Youth-Socioeconomic-Opportunities-in-Nicaragua-Completion-Report
***Our staff ob/gyn resigned in 2018 after the political unrest due to her health issues, but because the U.S. travel alert for Nicaragua remains high, we still do not have delegations coming as we once did, meaning we have lost about $100,000 in revenue and about $50,000 in donated medicines. As a result, we could not hire another ob/gyn.
NOTE: If you are using the mobile version, click on "web version" to see the full blog with all the features including "subscribe to blog by email". Please join us and also share on your social media.
Donate Here:
