Let’s educate public on infertility issues — GJA vice president urges media

Over the years Infertility has been a sensitive and complex issue that affects couples worldwide and the media must be actively involved in educating the public to change that perception.
Vice President of the Ghana Jour¬nalists Association (GJA), Mrs Linda Asante-Agyei has advised.
According to her infertility issues have the tendency to make a person behave in unacceptable ways that may cause inconvenience to the per¬son trying to conceive.
She expressed these concerns at a community awareness online video conference programme organised by the Merck Foundation on health for the Media.
It was in partnership with Mrs Re¬becca Akufo-Addo, First Lady of the Republic of Ghana and Ambassador of Merck Foundation “More than a moth¬er “ campaign and the GJA.
Mrs Asante-Agyei was speaking on the topic, “the role of the media in reaching out to communities at the grassroot levels raising awareness on health and social issues.”
She observed that this was large¬ly due to the importance attached to the role of motherhood, and the inability of a woman to meet this expectation which incurs the displea¬sure and unfavourable attitudes from society.
Mrs Asante Agyei noted that the development sadly, affected childless couples noting that the ultimate pur¬pose of marriage was procreation-to produce children who will continue the heritage and name of the family.
She said sometimes the pressure compelled childless women to even isolate themselves to avoid any con¬frontation from others thus maintain their mental health.
“Women who are battling infertil¬ity usually suffer serious stigmatisa¬tion.
“However, those with high edu¬cation living in urban cities feel less stigmatised while women in rural communities feel more stigmatised, Mrs Asante-Agyei noted.
To address this challenge of in¬fertility stig¬matisation, she called on the media to extend educa¬tion to rural communities for more people to be educated.
She was of the view that the more infertile women were exposed to knowledge about the subject, the more likely they would be to live a lifestyle that would increase their chances of becoming fertile.
Mrs Asante-Agyei reminded soci¬ety that although motherhood was considered a major role of women there were other roles they played in building society which should be re¬spected, therefore, their roles should not only be limited to child-bearing.
The Vice President also advised men to seek medical care since of infertility could also be from the men.

From Dzifa Tetteh Tay, Tema