The sexual activity of 500 pregnant women in Ilesa, Nigeria was investigated in a prospective study carried out at the antenatal clinic of the Wesley Guild Hospital, Ilesa between December 1999 and September 2000. While the sexual desire in pregnancy of most of the women (60%) remains the same as in the non-pregnant state, coital frequency was reduced in majority of them (64%). The reasons given by the respondents for reduced sexual activity include nausea and vomiting of early pregnancy (30%), fear of miscarriage (12%), fear of harming the fetus (12%), physical awkwardness (20%), lack of interest (10%), discomfort (6%), fear of membrane rupture (8%), fear of infection (8%) and fatigue (10%). Coital frequency, however, remained the same in 32% and increased in 4% of the women. The reasons for this include: "it helps to keep the husband around" (3%), maintain marital harmony (20%), satisfying (16%) and will facilitate labour in late pregnancy (6%). The findings from this study suggest a mixed-feeling effect with a tilt towards a positive attitude to sexuality in pregnancy. The health professional should favour the complete enjoyment of sexual activity during pregnancy.

This study investigates the prevalence and determinants of contraceptive practice in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. A prospective study of 500 rural women in the reproductive age group was conducted between April to June 1999 in the Igboya health district of Ife central local government area of Osun State. A comprehensive contraceptive promotion and distribution had been carried out in this area by the University Teaching Hospital, the State Ministry of Health and many non-governmental organisations in the past 10 years. It is therefore expected that the contraceptive awareness and use in this environment would be high. Unfortunately, although all the respondents (100%) were aware of contraception and 78% were sexually active, only 18.8% used contraception. A majority of the non-users gave no reasons for failure to use contraception. Among reasons given by others include fear of side effects, no need for contraception, not married, religion, need for more children and student status. The most common contraceptive method among users was intrauterine contraceptive device followed by pills, condoms and injectable contraceptives. Factors which were significantly associated with utilisation of contraception were availability of family planning services, parity, knowledge of contraception and child spacing (P < 0.05). Religion, literacy level, attitudes of family planning providers and distance to family planning services were not found to be significant (P > 0.05). Recommendations that will improve wide contraceptive usage are preferred.

The occupational health hazards among health-care workers in an obstetrics and gynaecology unit were investigated. A total of 78 pretested questionnaires were administered to the doctors, nurses and ward orderlies in the unit of Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. The common occupational health hazards were work-related stress (83.3%), needle-stick injuries (75.6%), bloodstains on skin (73.1%), sleep disturbance (42.3%), skin reactions (37.2%) assault from patients (24.3%) and hepatitis (8.9%). Nearly half of the staff used diazepam, lexotan or alcohol to cope with the stress of work. A greater percentage of doctors compared to nurses and ward orderlies used safety precautions such as gloves, facemasks and aprons. All the staff employed regular handwashing after various procedures. However no category of staff adopted regularly proper disposal of needles and sharps into separate puncture-resistant containers. About 59% of the staff recap used needles. The implications of the findings were discussed and recommendations made appropriately.

Data from several parts of Nigeria point to increasing sexual activity among single adolescents of both sexes with progressive decreasing age at initiation and poor contraceptive use. This paper investigates the sexual behaviour and contraceptive use among teenage secondary school students in Ilesha, southwest Nigeria. This is a cross-sectional population survey of 300 male and female secondary school students within the age group of 13-19 years. The setting is secondary school coaching classes in Ilesha, southwest Nigeria. The outcome measures include prevalence of sexual activity, age at first sexual debut, circumstances leading to first sexual debut, number of sexual partners and family planning use. The result shows that out of the 300 studied, 50% were sexually active, the predominant age at first coitus was 15-19 years, and circumstances leading to sexual debut included mutual agreement, coercion and curiosity. Predominant proportion of sexually active teenagers (86.7%) did not use contraception at the time of first coitus and most of them had more than one sexual partner. The conclusion from this study is that 50% of teenage secondary school girls in this part of Nigeria are sexually active; 68.7% whom, have multiple sexual partners, and 86.7% of them did not use contraception at sexual debut. This unsafe sexual behaviour therefore put them at a great risk of acquiring STDs including HIV infection, and unwanted pregnancy. This study therefore recommends sex education/family life education for young people to encourage them to delay sexual activity as much as possible and practice safe sex when it eventually commences. There is also the need to sensitise the young people, parents, teachers, the community and all stake holders on the magnitude of the problem and to open up dialogue that will break the social, cultural and other mysteries hindering adolescents and youth reproductive health education and services in Nigeria.

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