Abstract:
Social media outlets are inundated with quips
about the baby boom coming nine months after
the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s not that funny. Or that simple.
The global spread of the coronavirus has
resulted in unprecedented containment measures.
Around the world, businesses and schools are
closed; hospital services are reduced and redir-
ected to provide only emergency care; global aid
and development agencies have repatriated their
employees. These are appropriate responses to a
rapidly evolving pandemic, but pose serious risks
for women and adolescent girls everywhere.
Our vulnerable populations are now becoming
further isolated from much needed reproductive
health care. Unplanned and risky pregnancies
will increase as a result of this pandemic. In low-
and middle-income countries (LMIC) like Kenya,
where we have a direct clinical and teaching
relationship through AMPATH (the Academic
Model Providing Access to Healthcare), the unmet
family planning need is already at least 18%, as
reported by the Kenya Data Health System
(KDHS, 2014). This does not accurately reflect the
much higher unmet need among adolescent girls,
women within certain tribes, in rural areas and
with low educational and socioeconomic status,
who are underrepresented in national statistics.
