Family planning myths are false beliefs that are strongly held to prevent individual or couple from using family planning methods. We are in the era of technology and discoveries keep evolving but some people still hold on to cultural beliefs.

Family planning was discovered because they noticed majority of women’s death were related to pregnancy and there was a rise in death of children less than 5 years because their mothers couldn’t take care of them properly. This was because there was no proper spacing between the children and most of those births were unplanned. Despite all these, some people still do not believe in family planning. They hold on to some false beliefs. They do not realize that the advantage of family planning far outweighs the disadvantage.

Let’s discuss common family planning myths

• Some people believe it will make them loose their shape by making them gain more weight.

• Some feel it will make their tummy protrude.

• Some believes it will cause unstoppable vaginal bleeding.

• To some, they will not see their period again which they feel it isn’t a good sign as the menstrual blood will accumulate in their body and cause discomfort.

• Some husbands believe some of these family planning methods will pinch them during sexual intercourse.

• Some believes it will delay the next child birth.

• To some, their culture or religion does not allow it.

• Some feels it can fail. They claim they have seen people who did family planning and still became pregnant.

Unraveling these myths

The fact remains  that what fails to work for Mrs A may work for Mrs B. That is why you do not make conclusions based on your neighbor’s experience on a method. Like I said in the post on should I go for family planning, you will be asked some questions to know which is likely to suit your body and will also be given a short appointment to follow you up.

There is this believe that family planning stops menstruation which can be dangerous for the woman’s health. They claim the menstrual blood will accumulate in the body and cause discomfort. This is not true. What some of these methods do is that they hinder ovulation and without this, there will be no menstruation. People with accumulation of blood in their womb has another disease entirely that is not likely to be related to family planning.

Some people are scared of family planning because they believe it is not 100% protective. They talk about some of their friends and families who got pregnant after using a method. With practice over the years, we discovered that some of these women rush to the health facility hours to few days after meeting with their husbands during ovulation. Fertilization would have occurred and this embryo would try to find it’s way to implant in the womb. At this point, both blood and urine pregnancy test will be negative because the embryo had not implanted. By the time the family planning method start to work, there is an embryo in the womb. This leads to false alarm that the method failed. Although there is none that is 100% protective, but failure is not common if done and used the right way.

For those using coil, your husband will not feel it once its fitted properly. During your menstruation the rope may swim out, all you just need to do is to tuck it in. You must not pull it so that it will not shift. This will prevent it from getting displaced thereby reducing failure rate.

Also, the type that will be suggested for you is based on the number of children you have on ground. A woman that is just starting her family will not be introduced to the type given to one that has completed hers. This will prevent the problem of secondary infertility.

Conclusion

Family planning was introduced to reduce the death of mothers during pregnancy and childbirth. It is important that the body recovers completely from the previous conception before embarking on another. It also helps reduce infant death. In lieu of this, let us encourage women to help themselves by using a family planning method.