CONTRACEPTIVE PRACTICES AMONG FEMALE SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS
Adolescents’ sexuality and reproductive health information needs and services have been a major concern and challenge to the international community for over a decade. This is as a result of the growing awareness of young peoples’ relatively high risk of exposure to inaccurate or incomplete information about reproductive health issues such as sex, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), pregnancy, abortion, maternal complications, female genital mutilation and so on (World Health Organization, 2002). The advancement in science and technology has restructured and redefine the way and manner people interact with things that pertains them. For instance, birth control. A lot of devices have been produced to reduce that rate at which people especially women reproduce at the detriment of their health. The issue of pre-marital sex is likening to a burning bush among youths globally. It is worthy of note, to mention that youths engage in pre-marital unprotected sex for several reason such as they don’t enjoy sex when contraceptive is used, contraceptive is too expensive, it is far out of their reach to mention but few reasons. It is after the exercise that they run from pole-to-pole to use one thing or the other so that the unprotected does not result in unwanted pregnancy. Hence, this studies to investigate the practice of contraceptive among female students in secondary school in Ikere Local Government Area of Ekiti State.
Unwanted pregnancy is one of the problems facing adolescent girls. In Sub Saharan Africa it is estimated that 10% of girls become pregnant at the age of sixteen (WHO, 2008).Teenage girls who get pregnant are likely to drop out from school and are unlikely to have the social and economic means to raise their children. In Nigeria, adolescent pregnancy has been identified as one of the reasons for girls dropping out from school (Olukoya and Ferguson (2002). It has been reported that many young people become sexually active at an early age, when most of them have no knowledge on reproductive health. (Reina et al., 2010). A study on adolescents in the rural area of Nigeria reported that school children lack credible knowledge about safe sex (Mushi et al.,2007). Unintended pregnancy is also associated with increased risk of morbidity for women and with health behaviors such as delay in prenatal care which may affect the health of the infant. Educational programs on reproductive health have been conducted in Nigeria, however knowledge and practice of secondary school girls regarding safe days and contraceptive use is not well documented.
Access to appropriate reproductive health information by adolescent girls is crucial to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals of reducing maternal and child mortality by 2015 and halting and reversing the spread of HIV among the most vulnerable by 2010. Yet, literature has shown that secondary school adolescent girls have inadequate access to reproductive health information due to socio-cultural values, religious beliefs, economic factors, inadequate information resources and facilities.