Implications of rising birthrates are serious for Nigerian families in the face of declining national GDP and persistent low health budgets, specialists in the field have warned.

The Deputy Chairman of Medical and Advisory Committee in charge of Research and Ethics of the Modibbo Adamawa University Teaching Hospital, Yola, Dr Solomon Bulus, was one of the specialists who painted the gloomy realities, saying that the realities buttress calls on families to embrace child spacing and fewer children.

Dr. Bulus, speaking to newsmen who visited him as part of activities mobilised by an NGO, The Challenge Initiative (TCI), to mark this year’s World Population Day, insisted that Nigeria’s fertility and birth rates are a lot higher than the rate of development, hence the worsening incidence of poverty across the country.

“The population coming out is more than we can cater for,” he said, adding, “We have some of the worst health indices in the world, and this is largely a reflection of our population and lack of preparation to sustain it.”

Bulus said poverty in households and lack of will or capacity of government to provide necessary services makes unbridled childbearing unwise.

Speaking in a similar vein, the Senior Registrar of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the Modibbo Adama University Teaching Hospital, Dr Ahmed Kaitafi, said governments at all levels need to sensitise citizens on need and safety of child spacing methods.

“The rate of rejection of family planning is still quite high because of myths and cultural biases against it,” Ahmed Kaitafi said, emphasising the need for other authorities to take up the task of educating the general public as the hospital could only sensitise the patients who visit it for care.