SHE bore her first child when she was 19 years old.
Now pregnant with her fourth child, 23-year-old homemaker Mary Ann Amance said she and her husband, a worker in the Mactan Export Processing Zone, decided to control the size of their family.
They attended an orientation of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law law at the barangay Tinago gym in Cebu CIty last Friday.
“I was interested to attend,” she told Cebu Daily News and lamented the rising cost of basic goods.
Implanon contraceptives were distributed for free to the women in the audience. The birth control implant is inserted under the skin of a woman’s arm and secretes a hormone, progestin, that controls her fertility for three years.
Another participant, 18-year-old Annalyn Solante of barangay Pahina Central, is six months pregnant, said she was there because she and her partner want to plan their family.
‘It’s not easy to raise a family,” Solante said.
Among the women who decided to have the implant was Farlyn Mae Mella, who got pregnant at 20 years old.
Mella is unemployed while her partner works as part of a housekeeping team at one of the companies in the Cebu I.T. Park.
Regional Director Bruce Ragas of the Population Commission (PopCom) told reporters that more orientation sessions and activities that will be conducted in Central Visayas.