Around 5,500 maternal deaths reported in Rawalpindi annually

Public dialogue on population stresses need for birth spacing

RAWALPINDI: As many as 5,500 mothers die during pregnancy every year in Rawalpindi which was mainly because of lack of spacing in pregnancies.

Every fifth women in Punjab got pregnant without her will and if the population was not controlled, the problems in the province would be more than its resources.

These views were expressed by the participants of the Public Dialogue on the Current Situation of the Population in Punjab organised by the Population Council on Thursday.

The event was attended by Population Council Project Director Saniya. Speaking on the occasion, Jamia Masjid Bahria Town Chief Khateeb Maulana Abdul Zahir Farooqi said that according to Quran, a mother should breastfeed an infant up to two years which automatically makes it hard for the mother to get pregnant for at least three years.

The natural birth spacing through breastfeeding will have positive impacts on a mother’s health as well. Farooqi clarified that Quran had not bound to produce a certain number of children and added that less resources with more children will create trouble for the family itself.

Prevention of pregnancy is one thing, however, he clarified that Islam prohibited abortion.

Pims Hospital Senior Gynaecologist Dr Saima Zubair said: “A child is still lactating and the mother gets pregnant, which deprives the infant of right to feed.”

DHA CEO Dr Sohail Chaudhry said that there was a dire need for counselling the couples on family planning. However, the health authority was short of staff, besides owning to social taboos, people don’t want to talk to family planning workers.

Amjad Ahsan from the Population Welfare Department said they had 77 delivery outlets in Rawalpindi where people come every day. However, he said that there were 175 union councils (UCs) in the city while there should be one delivery centre in each UC.

MNA Naureen Ibrahim said population welfare had never been discussed in the parliament although birth rate in Pakistan was 2.4 per cent. She said that in several parts of the country, people keep trying for a son until he was born and added that women bearing daughters were looked down upon.

MNA Samina Matloob said there was a need to direct the family planning focus on men so that they should bring their wives to population welfare centres where competent staff and free medicines were available. Besides she said, the government even pays transport fare for couples coming to population welfare centres. 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2019.