A fertility specialist with the Accra Fertility Centre, a subsidiary of the Medifem Multi-Specialist Hospital and Fertility Centre, has advised married couples with fertility problems to first seek medical solutions in their quest to bear children.
According to Dr. Nana Henaku-Larbi, almost all infertility cases are purely medical conditions and can only be solved with proper diagnosis and procedure. He therefore asked couples seeking to procreate to conform to treatment and recommendations by health experts.
“We need to move away from the practice where spiritualists become our only port-of-call in our quest to get children. God has given the wisdom to doctors who through scientific means, can engineer wombs to produce babies.
“Almost all the conditions associated with childbirth relates to bad reproductive history, issues of incompatibility and other medical conditions. With assisted conception technologies and an adherence to reproductive lifestyle recommendations, every couple can have their own child in a safe way,” Dr. Henaku-Larbi remarked.
He continued: “I therefore encourage everybody seeking a child to first see a doctor”.
Dr. Henaku-Larbi gave this advice when he counselled couples on the sidelines of a seminar organized by Live, Move, Have Your Being, a not-for-profit organization in collaboration with Mahogany Consult, a Public Relations and Event Management firm.
At the seminar, a lecture which was on the theme “Living with infertility” was delivered by Dr. Florence Naab, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana Nursing and Midwifery School with Dr. Joseph Homia of the Medifem Hospital as well as Dr. Irene Kretchy and Mrs. Owiredua Kwofie, both Clinical Psychologists, facilitating one-on-one consultation sessions with participants who were mostly married couples.
Organizers say the program is the third in a series of quarterly events put together to educate, inform and counsel families going through fertility and pregnancy-related challenges in Ghana.
Participants of the event stressed that the Lecture and Counseling session was an eye-opener and has given them useful tips on best reproductive practices.
Infertility amongst married couples in Ghana has traditionally been attributed to spiritual and superstitious reasons. However, medical experts have called for a paradigm shift to more scientific solutions and with major breakthroughs in fertility engineering in the country, it is expected that the population will embrace this call.