Societal pressure in the region is frequently against using contraceptives to limit the number of\u00a0children<\/a>, researchers from Ujamaa Africa and US-based Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing reported in a study presented at the 5th International Conference on Family Planning today (14 November) in Kigali, Rwanda.<\/p>\n So-called reproductive coercion occurs when male partners either refuse contraceptive use or force discontinuation of contraception.<\/p>\n \u201cReproductive coercion is occurring in these communities [in Nairobi],\u201d says Shannon Wood, a PhD candidate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a co-author of the study.<\/p>\n \u201cWe encourage healthcare providers to recognise reproductive coercion as an issue women in these communities are facing when providing family planning and violence services,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n According to the\u00a0researchers<\/a>, Nairobi\u2019s urban informal settlements are an ideal place to examine reproductive coercion given its dense population, high rate of intimate partner violence and high fertility.<\/p>\n \u201cWe used focus group discussions with 49 female intimate partner violence survivors,\u201d explained Wood.<\/p>\n \u201cThis included both quantitative measures, as well as further in-depth interviews to better understand the mechanisms, manifestation, and potential safety strategies for women undergoing reproductive coercion.\u201d<\/p>\n Yohannes Dibaba, a researcher in population and reproductive health at the Kenya-based African Population and Health Research Center, says reproductive coercion is a health problem among women and adolescents in\u00a0Sub-Saharan Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis contributes to the high maternal mortality largely from repeated pregnancies that [are] spaced too closely together,\u201d he explains. \u201cFor adolescents and young women, sexual violence and the inability to negotiate condom use increase their risk of\u00a0HIV<\/a>\u00a0infection.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [NAIROB] Men in Kenya\u2019s informal urban settlements are forcing women to stop using contraceptives, resulting in clandestine family planning methods that include the risk of dangerous back street abortions, a study reveals. Almost half of all abortions are unsafe,\u00a0according to\u00a0the WHO, with the biggest proportion of dangerous abortions happening in Africa. Societal pressure in the region is frequently against using… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2411,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2410\/revisions\/2411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\u201cWe encourage healthcare providers to recognise reproductive coercion as an issue women in these communities are facing.\u201d<\/h3>\n
Shannon Wood, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health<\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n
![\"abortions\"](\"https:\/\/www.scidev.net\/filemanager\/root\/site_assets\/ssa_en\/2018\/abortions.JPG\")
\nWorldwide, an estimated 25 million unsafe abortions occur each year. Source: WHO<\/em><\/p>\n