Numbers game: Mt Kenya’s noisy debate on family size
Career administrator Joseph Kaguthi (left) and Kiambu Woman Rep Gathoni wa Muchomba. The two are among those who have made public declarations that men in the Mt Kenya region should marry more wives to preserve the community’s numbers.
Politics is a game of numbers, they say, and for its players, the more people the merrier. In Mt Kenya region, this political obsession with bigger populations, ergo more voters, has set politicians on a collision course with health and development experts.
While some politicians and traditionalists want to preserve the region’s numerical advantage in elections, contrary reasoning is that families should only have the number of children they can comfortably support.
Career administrator Joseph Kaguthi and Kiambu Woman Rep Gathoni wa Muchomba are among those who have made public declarations that men in the region should marry more wives to preserve the community’s numbers.
When Mr Jamleck Kamau was Kigumo MP (2013-2017), he launched a scheme to reward pregnant women with Sh2,000 each in a campaign to shore up new births. But, alarmed, the Federation of African Women Educationists (Fawe) has urged parents to practice family planning to guarantee children a better quality of life.
“It’s nonsensical to tell the poor to continue giving birth like rats. We need controlled and planned families that reflect the realities of the world today. We should plan for children whose basic needs we can guarantee, including education,” says Fawe Coordinator Cecilia Wanjiku.
‘Turn to begging’
She says politicians are only interested in votes and will not mind “whether you give birth to 1,000 [children] for whom, to feed, you’ll have to turn to begging”.
Reproductive health issues, laments Murang’a County Director of Health Services Winfred Kanyi, are wrongly perceived by sections of the public. Child spacing, she says, enables the mother to heal better, also ensuring children better health and growth.
“It’s also directly connected to the national economy. A country with planned families easily gets it right in planning for services.”
The region is reviewing its 2020/25 strategic plan on boosting family planning uptake among residents with contraceptive use now at 48 per cent.
The Central Family Planning Cost Implementation Plan 2020-2025 aims to raise this proportion to 72 per cent.
Family planning
Murang’a Deputy Director of Medical Services James Ngigi says, “family planning is [critical] to improving maternal health and reducing the maternal mortality rate”.
The county will carry out advocacy to educate residents to view family planning as a gender burden issue, he adds.
For a region with a population considered largely young—below 35 as per the 2019 census—low family planning uptake has raised concerns among experts.
But only 40.3 per cent of women of reproductive age use family planning methods, according to the Kenya Health Information System.
About 49 per cent of the users have had injections, while those under 48 combined oral contraceptives at 26 per cent.
Intrauterine contraceptive devices were used by five per cent, implants nine per cent, natural family planning one per cent, male condoms four per cent and female condoms one per cent.
Less than 0.5 per cent have undergone surgical procedures—bilateral tubal ligation for women or vasectomy for men.
Public health centres
Some 34 per cent of those using modern contraceptives obtain their devices from private outlets. Except for the pill and male condoms, public health centres are the main providers of most types of contraceptives.
About 18 per cent of married women are not under any family planning method, with nine per cent having an unmet need for spacing children and eight per cent having an unmet need for birth limiting.
The uptake of modern family planning by men is below one per cent in those in marriage, according to Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Organisation Chairperson Lucy Nyambura.
“For those in casual relationships, males are willing to use only condoms as a contraceptive but 100 per cent are not willing to embrace the use of pills or surgical methods like vasectomy,” she says.
She urges residents to ask themselves why the rich shun polygamy and large families.
High dependency rate
Low family planning uptake translates to a high dependency rate that puts a strain on the economy and worsens food insecurity, says Dr Caroline Macharia, the principal nursing officer coordinating reproductive health services in the region.
“Unplanned births contributes to higher morbidity as mothers are unable to sufficiently breastfeed their babies. If mothers give birth every other year, they are unable to exclusively breastfeed their babies for the first six months to guarantee better foundational health,” Dr Macharia says.
She adds that birth spacing allows mothers to fully recuperate and bond with their child before the next one is born.
Lamenting low involvement of men in family planning, Dr Macharia says her department often appeals to men to accompany their wives to antenatal visits.
“Many men have kept off the issue of family planning yet there are things they can do to [lighten their wives’ burden],” she says.
Societal morals
However, clerics and other leaders have warned that promoting contraceptive use should not target minors.
“We know that there are campaigns being sneaked in to make use of contraceptives a teen issue,” Indigenous Faiths Alliance Chairperson Bishop Edward Nyutu says.
“We must ensure that family planning only targets those in legally founded and acknowledged unions. We must not lose focus of the fact that we have societal morals to promote and insist on.”
The bishop adds that advocacy programmes to sensitise young people on the need to abstain from sex should be rolled out, urging parents and teachers to commit to educating the youth on sexual risks.
Of the country’s 22 million registered voters, Rift Valley and Central have the highest numbers, followed by Nyanza, Eastern and Nairobi respectively.
