Birth Control Towards A Family Welfare [Archives:2000/15/Health]

By: Imad Al-Saqqaf
Mohammed Al-Hakimi
Taiz
As civilizations grow and develop, people keep developing as well to secure a better life. Unquestionably, development is impossible if man himself is not developed.
Amidst the rapid growth of population and the absence of proper organization, one becomes more worried about how to keep the wheel of progress rolling.
The Islamic religion is sensitive about the importance of preparing generations properly to shoulder their various duties in life.

A number of Arab government have adopted a system of careful birth control in an attempt to raise strong generations that are able to face life’s ups and downs. The central motive of those governments in this regard has been securing broader educational, health, social, political opportunities for their rising generations.

“Look at those people scattered in the streets of the city with no jobs. See how many lunatics, beggars, handicapped, qat chewers are there. Parents seem to have been oblivious about whether or not they would be able to nurture their children properly. Traditionally, men marry very early, at the age of 15 or less, in Yemen and beget their first children after a year. On the average one child in a year is added to the family in the absence of a suitable atmosphere for the children to grow up. To make matters worse, those young husbands depend entirely on their fathers for a living, specially in the countryside. Sometimes the relationship between them and their fathers is dampened and this leaves them with no source of funding. Such people, by creating a large family, do not only wrong themselves but a whole generation,” Mr. Aklan Modhesh said.
At the Family Care Society in Taiz we met Mr. Ameen Annozeily who said:
“The Society was established in Sanaa in 1976. It is a member of the International Federation for Family Organization. It has six bureaux in Sanaa, Aden, Taiz, Hodaidah, Ibb and Hadhramout. We organize regular visits to hospitals, clinics and medical centers. Our objectives are to promote marital bliss and child care, spreading awareness about these among youths as well as training volunteers. The society also holds seminars and organizes lectures in this regard in different locations such as factories, women’s unions, schools, sports clubs, etc. For example, last year we conducted a number of training courses for volunteers among teachers, journalists, mosques Imams etc. because these are the people who would play a great role in spreading awareness among people.

Among the services we provide is antenantal care and counseling. We provide expectant mothers and children with immunization and families with birth control means. More than 80 cases visit the society every day. We provide hospitals , clinics and health centers with the necessary materials for this purpose. In addition, we hold training courses in health centers to improve the quality of their services.
We are not against production. But there should be a planned way for creating a family. Continuos child-births adversely affects the mother physically and psychologically. It, affects the family economically and socially as well.

It is better to have a few children so that parents are able to discharge their responsibility properly in bringing them up in a right way. We hope that people will understand and appreciate what we do.”We also met with some doctors and asked about their opinion on women go to conjurers seeking cures. We first met Dr. Afrah Al-Adimy. “All that is given to people as medicine by such “conjurers” is obscure. It needs careful and serious study. Anyhow, I believe that pregnancy happens accidentally.
Families are supposed to have proper planning before deciding to go in for a baby and they should understand the implications of that,” Dr. Afrah said.

We also met Dr. Hwaida Abdul Majeed who commented on the same subject saying:
“Conjurers’ ways of treatment, as well as their medicine are not scientifically attested. Herbs are more acceptable because many drugs are made from herbs.”
” One of the projects adopted by the society is to have mobile health care clinics in about 20 districts for improving health services in the regions,” Annozeily added.
At the society’s office we met with one of the women who looked physically torn out. We asked her about the reason of her coming there. She said that she wanted to prevent further child-birth because she already had 7 children, although she was very young. She said that she got married at he age of 14 and that she has been giving birth to a baby every year and a half. She was complaining that her husband lacked awareness regarding the consequences of having many children.”According to Islamic figures, birth control is forbidden if the reason is poverty only. However, it is advisable when it is for the sake of the mothers’ health.

Some people argue that there is no harm in having many children. Engineer Faisal Al-Nadheef said that his grandfather married 12 women and got more than 40 children. He said that all of the children were nourished properly and no one died of hunger.”However, there is no doubt that looking after children becomes more difficult and tiring if there are many children.
To conclude, family welfare should be paid its due attention if we want to bring up healthy generations.

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