Family Planning Work By Missionary

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31769, 28 August 1968, Page 2

Family Planning Work By Missionary

Because the Moslem religion follows the cycle of the moon very closely the contraceptive pill can be used effectively in Moslem countries where the women are illiterate, because their menstrual cycle can be explained to them in the same terms.

Miss Patricia Robinson, a Christchurch girl who has just returned from West Pakistan where she has been nursing in a mission hospital for three years and a half, said the contraceptive pill was being used with reasonable success as a family-planning measure in the Government-sponsored family-plapning programme, now in its second five-year phase. Women were aware of the idea of family planning because it was well advertised on the radio and other news media and even on road-side posters. Zenana Christian Hospital in Sukkur, where Miss Robinson worked, specialised in women’s diseases and complaints. Daily Lessons Every morning Miss Robinson gave a lesson on family planning to the out-patients at the hospital. She did this by means of a series of pictures.

The first picture was of a

wedding celebration and it was followed by a picture of a happy young couple, then the same happy couple with one baby, two babies, and later with three babies. “Then a policeman appears and says, ‘Stop.’ Then I show them a picture of the same happy couple with three children and a picture of the couple with six children and they are poor and sad and miserable,” said Miss Robinson.

Posters of small, happy families are adjacent to pictures of large poor families on the roadways. Intra-uterine devices were the most commonly used contraceptive but they had suffered some ill favour because some women had had trouble with bleeding and failure was possible. More Research There was some research in Sweden to investigate another kind of device. Money for research was also available from the Ford Foundation. Possibly the most effective means of contraception would be a monthly injection and this was being investigated. Some women who had heard about it came to the hospital and asked for their injections, even though these were not yet available, said Miss Robinson. The hospital dealt with many cases of abnormal obstetrics and there was often great difficulty in obtaining blood for transfusions. Even when a woman lay dying her

husband would not give his blood.

“We have performed Caesarian operations when the haemoglobin content of the blood was only 18 per cent—even though the text books say you should not operate when the percentage of haemoglobin is less than 80 per cent. But if we had waited for blood the woman would have bled to death.” Malnutrition Malnutrition among babies and small children was also common, not because the food was not available but because women did not feed it to their babies. Many women breast-fed their babies until they were two years old because, they said, the Koran stated children must be breast fed until they were two. “Milk alone is not sufficient for the child at that age and we have a clinic for healthy babies at the hospital and we try to educate them about the other dietary requirements, such as meat, eggs and cereal.” The Christian population in Pakistan was a minute percentage, Miss Robinson said. If the results of mission work were measured in terms of converts to Christianity, it would seem to be very discouraging. “Social and family pressures make it very difficult for a Moslem openly to become a Christian and converts are few if any, but we are confident that we are serving the community in the name of Christ “The Christian Influence far exceeds its numerical strength.”