Increasing family planning access and choice in Nigeria
DKT Nigeria, has started a service delivery family planning program in Nigeria for past one year. Clinical service delivery teams provide family planning services directly to women in low-income and urban slum areas of Lagos, this helps expand access to family planning options. This program helps promote long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) like IUD, Implants and DMPA Sc.. Outreach coordinators, nurses/midwives, drivers, community mobilizers and CHEWs all make up each team. Clinical team provide contraceptives in both public and private health facilities, in workplaces with large women workforce and in community locations like churches, market places and places of social networks in Lagos.
In 2015, DKT Nigeria provided 2500 women with contraceptives of their choice which translates to more than 10,000 CYPs (couple year protection). The success of the outreach programs is seen in the number of first-time family planning users and adopters. 67% of clients are first-time contraceptive users, with the majority opting for the implant. Furthermore, 9% of acceptors were not using contraceptives before coming to DKT outreach, and 24% of acceptors changed their current short- term methods (oral pills and Depo) to long-term methods (IUDs and Implants).
The outreach programs tend to a certain demographic, as 67% of clients in outreach are below 35 years old, but only 8% of clients are below 24 years old. This can be explained by the fact that outreach sessions are conducted in health facilities, which do not target young people. Instead, the majority of clients that are targeted are married women having 3 or more children.
