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Because of the many barriers that women in Nigeria face when it comes to accessing family planning, nearly one in five currently married women ages 15 to 49 who want to delay or space their pregnancies are not using a contraceptive method.
Injectables are among the most popular modern contraceptive methods among married women in Nigeria, with use more than tripling since 1990. A new self-injectable contraceptive—DMPA-SC, or subcutaneous depot medroxyprogesterone acetate—gives women and youth the choice to easily and discreetly self-inject in their homes or other convenient locations rather than travel to a health care clinic to have the shot administered—a sometimes difficult and costly process. This new self-injectable method encourages continued method use and promises to reach new users.
PRB partnered with the Association for Reproductive and Family Health (ARFH) in Nigeria to create a video and series of state-specific policy briefs that highlight DMPA-SC’s potential to overcome the barriers women face and increase access to family planning methods, especially in hard-to-reach areas, through community-based distribution. This suite of products supports ARFH’s Resilient & Accelerated Scale-up of DMPA-SC/Self-injection in Nigeria (RASuDiN) project, which aims to expand the family planning method mix by increasing use, acceptance, availability, and accessibility of DMPA-SC. Both sets of products call on Ministries of Health in ten states (Anambra, Delta, Enugu, Kwara, Lagos, Niger, Ogun, Oyo, Plateau, and Rivers) to complement the Federal Ministry of Health’s efforts to introduce and scale up DMPA-SC by acting to make this new method fully available in communities in all local government authorities.
