Odoben (C/R) July 20, GNA- Mr. Emmanuel Adjei Domson, Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa (AOB) District Chief Executive has urged couples in the district not to take undue advantage of the free maternal delivery programme to give birth to more children that their financial position could not support. "Controlling your child birth by using contraception could enable couples to have small size families their financial position could support," he said.

Mr. Adjei Domson made the call when he launched the district Family Planning Campaign, under the theme: "Your future is in your hands, make a healthy choice," at Odoben.

He said the world is "changing and with increasing high cost of living; there is the need to change our life styles of having a larger family."

The DCE said, it would be wiser to have a small number of children and train them to become good citizens than to have a bigger family who could not be trained properly.

Mr. Domson appealed to the people to bury their differences and come together as one people towards the development of the area, adding that, it is through peace and unity that they could develop.

Madam Janet Tornui, Programme Officer in-charge of family planning at Quality Health Partners, said her NGO is a major component of reproductive health for the reduction of maternal mortality.

She said spacing birth through the practicing of Family Planning would enable couples to avoid unwanted and unintended pregnancies, adding that, it also help the mother to be healthy also prevented maternal deaths.

Touching on Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), Madam Tornui said all sexually active people needed to be protected against it. She advised them to use condoms to avoid contracting HIV/AIDS and other STIs.

Dr. Luzis Gohungo-Ammousou, District Health Service Director, in a speech read for him urged the people to practice Family Planning to reduce the size of their families.

He gave the family planning records in the district as 28.5 percent of the total population in 2005, 29.9 in 2006 and 27.6 in 2007, a situation he described as not encouraging.

Dr. Amoussou therefore entreated the people in the area to embrace the family planning programme to help in spacing their birth. The Queen mother of Odoben Nana Efuwah Okyerema II, who chaired the function appealed to the people to practise family planning so as to bring up the seize of family could cater for.