For the next six weeks, it will be hard to miss the message that birth spacing is better for mother and baby.
Starting today, that message will be communicated via radio, TV and T-shirts across Cambodia as part of this year’s media campaign to promote safer births.
“Birth spacing is better for the health of the children and for the health of the mother,” says Alma Rivera of Health Unlimited, a British-based non-governmental organization. Birth spacing means waiting for a period of time, sometimes several years, in between pregnancies.
The NGO’s Cambodia Health Education Medical Service is sponsoring the campaign, with the Ministry of Health’s National Reproductive Health Program and the Ministry for Women.
The $30,000 campaign is funded by the Community Fund of the UK, the European Commission and the UN Population Fund. This year’s campaign links birth spacing with the Ministry of Health’s program to promote safe motherhood. Organizers are not telling people how many children to have, Rivera said. “We do say they should make an informed choice” about how many children they want and when they want them, she said.
Cambodia’s population growth rate is 2.49 percent per year, much higher than Thailand’s 1 percent or Vietnam’s 1.8 percent. Such a high rate can spell trouble for a developing country. Poor families may not earn enough to educate or feed so many children.
Reliable birth control information and supplies can be difficult to find in rural districts where large families are traditional. Rivera said the campaign will urge couples to contact health centers for reliable materials.
The campaign will feature televised testimonials from women who use birth control and from women who don’t. Televised quiz shows will test knowledge of birth spacing techniques. T-shirts and comic books will get the message to those who are illiterate or who don’t read well, said Rivera.
