“I will never allow my daughter to go through what happened to me,” the UN sexual and reproductive health agency told Unfpa.
What happens when the conflict displaces tens of thousands of people in hot spots such as Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC) and Ukraine, and women die every day in childbirth or pregnancy?
The UNFPA is there, equipping displacement camps and medical personnel with supplies to save lives.
When an earthquake falls to the whole city locks, it places contraceptives in the emergency relief convoys together with the kits to administer babies and medications to stop the internal bleeding.
When a cyclone cuts through communities of remote islands, the agency sends contraceptives just when it sends sterile medical equipment, including condoms, oral and injectable contraceptives, contraceptive implants and intrauterine devices (IUD).
Because? Because contraceptives are part of the humanitarian attention that saves lives.
This can be contradictory to some, but it is a fact established in the eyes of medical science, humanitarian responders and women themselves.
Even outside emergency environments, having access to modern contraceptives and safe empowers women to make their own decisions about their fertility, which in turn reduces unwanted pregnancies and insecure abortions, improves health results and reduces The risk of maternal and child mortality.
In summary, family planning saves millions of lives. These are some of the reasons why:
A woman is injected into a contraceptive into a health center backed by UNFPA in the Central African Republic.
Getting pregnant does not stop in emergency environments
It is estimated that more than 60 percent of all maternal deaths take place in humanitarian crises and fragile environments, places where women fight to access the attention and nutrition necessary to carry a pregnancy safely.
Even in the best circumstances, the alarming proportions of women cannot say that not sex, approximately a quarter of women, according to the most recent data.
In a humanitarian crisis, women experience approximately twice the rates of gender violence, as well as the greatest risk of rape as a gun and genocide tool and the greatest risk of intimate violence of a couple. All this raises its vulnerability to an unwanted pregnancy.
Prevent fatal complications
While contraception is sometimes criticized, incorrectly, as a new medication, one that is not natural or not understood, the truth is that they have existed for millennia. Condones, for example, have been used for centuries.
When it comes to modern forms of contraception, they are among the most prescribed and well -studied medications that exist. Contraceptives have been investigated not only by pharmacologists and medical researchers, but also by health economists, epidemiologists and policy formulators, and the findings are conclusive: by preventing unwanted pregnancy, contraceptives prevent women from dying.
As? Each pregnancy involves a risk, and pregnancies in crisis environments, where health systems are in tingling and medical care, are particularly dangerous.
Help to save lives because babies do not expect
What happens when a woman is ready to give birth after a hurricane or in a war zone?
In the RDC added by crisis, a collapse in the health infrastructure has led to maternal mortality rates to shoot, with three women who die every hour due to pregnancy or childbirth complications.
“Many women in the northwest of Syria lose their lives while transferring between hospitals in the absence of essential supplies for critical conditions,” said Dr. Ikram Haboush, in Idlib.
Unwanted pregnancies also correlate directly with higher maternal mortality rates.
“That is why each public health program designed to reduce the number of maternal deaths incorporates contraception as one of the action pillars,” according to experts who wrote the Annual Publication of UNFPA, the report of the state of the world , seeing the invisible: the case of action in the careless crisis of unwanted pregnancy.
By preventing unwanted pregnancy, contraceptives also reduce the incidence of maternal injuries and diseases, fetal death and neonatal death.
In 2023, the Association of Dedicated Supplies of the UNFPA obtained contraceptives worth $ 136 million, which is estimated to avoid almost 10 million unwanted pregnancies and more than 200,000 maternal and newborn deaths. It is estimated that these contraceptives also prevented almost three million insecure abortions.
Two community workers provide information on contraceptives in Bihar, India.
Prevention of fatal diseases, chronic ailments
Contraceptives such as male and female condoms also save lives by decreasing the possibilities of contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV.
Even a treatable STIs can be potentially deadly in environments with limited access to medical care, as is the case with women and girls in Haiti, for example, where generalized and implacable sexual violence has led to growing rates of unintentionally pregnancy , as well as STIs. , while the health system has collapsed.
Only about three percent of the survivors in Haiti report that they receive treatment after the violation within 72 hours after the assault. This treatment includes emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy and prophylaxis after exposure to prevent HIV transmission.
Contraceptives also treat nottees not related to sexual activity that are weakening even in stable and safe circumstances such as polycystic ovary syndrome, endometriosis, dysmenorrhea and extremely heavy bleeding.
For women like Omaira Opikuko of Venezuela, there is no doubt that long -term contraception after their sixth delivery was saving life.
She suffered both bleeding and a prolonged uterus during her last labor.
“I was on the verge of death,” he said.
Two school students of Educator Thai Sears describe a variety of condoms available.
Profitable humanitarian interventions
Family planning is profitable.
In 2023, more than 50 countries that received contraceptive supplies from UNFPA made collective savings of more than $ 700 million through reduced medical care costs for pregnancy, childbirth and attention after abortion.
Numerous studies have shown that family planning is a critical investment for society, not only by avoiding unwanted pregnancy and maternal health problems that accompany it, but also by increasing education and employment gains among women.
In humanitarian environments, contraceptives are even more critical, helping women and families to survive and stabilize and leave them better prepared to recover.
No one knows better than the survivors of humanitarian crises.
“There is a lot of demand for family planning services,” said an emergency response immediately after a deadly cyclone.
Amid the growing precarity of the world, the increase in catastrophes and the increase in displacements, these services are a light in the dark for women and girls around the world.
As Mrs. Opikuko said in Venezuela: “I don't want to be afraid.”
Get more information about the UNFPA here.
