In a First Move of Its Kind Conservative Seyun Province Embraces Family Planning [Archives:2001/06/Health]

Karen Dabrowska
When Marie Stopes opened a family planning clinic in Seyun some of the locals reacted with dismay. The gate on the logo, which features the blue door of the head office in London, resembled a cross and there was the feeling that the clinic was somehow connected to the spread of Christianity.
But that was in the early days, over a year ago, when Marie Stopes was new in Seyun, recalls the clinics doctor and manager, Nahid Ahmed. She began an education campaign in any place where women come together and made several broadcasts on Seyun radio.
The local imam spent some time at the clinic talking to Dr Ahmed and her patients and in the end invited her to lecture in a building beside the mosque. The Quran states that a mother must feed her child for two years, implying the need to space pregnancies.
We feel the people accept us now and the number of clients is increasing, Dr Ahmed said, emphasizing that Marie Stopes is not just about family planning but also concentrates on womens health by providing antenatal care, vaccinations for children and ultra sound scanning. The clinic has a labor room and a small laboratory and is open in the morning and evening Saturday to Wednesday. There are nine staff members: Dr Ahmed, the receptionist, two midwives, a lab technician, a pharmacist, two guards and a cleaner.
It is the only clinic in the area which provides the contraceptive injection and the services are much cheaper than in private clinics where an ultra sound scan costs more than Marie Stopes charges.
Dr Ahmed sees several patients a day and notes that when the clinic first opened no one used IUDs. Now between six to eight women a month are choosing this form of contraception.
The work of Marie Stopes International, which also has a clinic in Sanaa, centers on the right of individuals to plan their families freely and responsibly, while enjoying the best reproductive health effectively with the right to choose.
The organization is active in countries including Albania, Bolivia, Lebanon, Mongolia, Nepal, Romania, Uganda, the UK, the USA, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.
The United Nations Population Fund has pointed out that although many countries are witnessing reductions in fertility rates and improvements in maternal health, still more than five hundred thousand women in developing countries die each year, and at least seven million women suffer infection or injury as a result of pregnancy: , seventy thousand women die from unsafe abortions.
There are over three hundred and thirty million cases of treatable sexually transmitted diseases annually. Up to half of the nearly million pregnancies each year are unwanted or ill-timed.
In Yemen rapid population growth represents one of the major challenges to development: The population has increased by three point seven percent according to the census and the country has one of the highest rates of population growth in the world.
According to the United Nations Development Program UNDP, if current trends persist, population projections indicate a doubling of the population in nineteen years. By the year 2031 Yemen is expected to have fifty million inhabitants.
Even if efforts to reduce fertility succeed, the transition from rapid population growth to population stability will not be reached until two thousand and sixty to two thousand and seventy. At that time the UNDP expects the population to have reached one hundred and thirteen million.

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