Reproductive health and justice initiative under the Pamoja Project, Àjose Nigeria, has called for more honest conversations about women’s reproductive health in Nigeria.
Àjose Nigeria lamented that women are often expected to navigate reproductive issues with incomplete information, cultural anxiety, religious pressure, stigma and, sometimes, dangerous misinformation.
To address the challenge, Àjose Nigeria has commissioned ‘Pull Up A Chair with Ose’, a new podcast series examining questions at the intersection of health, relationships, faith, law and reproductive decision-making.
Speaking on the initiative, Àjose Nigeria, in a statement, said: “There are some questions Nigerian women learn to ask quietly. Will I still be able to have children if I have fibroids? Does contraception cause infertility? What happens if I become pregnant and I do not want to continue the pregnancy? What does my faith say about abortion? When is bleeding during pregnancy an emergency? Who gets to decide what happens to my body? And, perhaps most importantly: Where can I find reliable answers without being judged?
“These questions are not new. What remains troubling is how often women are expected to navigate them with incomplete information, cultural anxiety, religious pressure, stigma and, sometimes, dangerous misinformation.
“The World Health Organisation describes reproductive health as encompassing contraception, fertility and infertility care, maternal and perinatal health, prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, protection from sexual and gender-based violence, and education around healthy relationships. It also includes the ability to decide if, when and how often to have children.
“For Nigerian women, these decisions rarely happen in isolation. They happen within families, marriages and relationships, churches and mosques, hospitals and pharmacies, and within a legal system that regulates reproductive choices. Increasingly, they also happen on social media, where medical information and misinformation can exist side by side.
“Pull Up A Chair attempts to bring some of these conversations back into a space where evidence, lived experience and respectful disagreement can coexist.
“The first episode begins with a question that has become almost synonymous with anxiety for many women diagnosed with fibroids or polycystic ovary syndrome, PCOS: Can I still have children?
“With Dr Ayo Fayinto and Dr Halita Garuba, the conversation explores the relationship between fibroids, PCOS and fertility, including symptoms, treatment options and the fears that can accompany a diagnosis.
“That conversation matters because a diagnosis can easily become a source of panic when women encounter reproductive health information without adequate context.
“For some women, fertility is treated not simply as a health concern but as a measure of womanhood. A diagnosis affecting fertility can therefore carry an emotional and social burden that extends well beyond the medical condition itself.
“A serious reproductive-health conversation must make room for both realities: what the science says and what the diagnosis feels like to the person living with it.
“The second episode turns to contraception and family planning with Dr Modupe Adedeji. Few areas of reproductive health are surrounded by as many persistent myths.
“Women and couples continue to ask whether contraception causes infertility, whether fertility immediately returns after stopping a method, which methods have side effects and whether there is a universally ‘best’ contraceptive option.
“There is not one method that is appropriate for everyone. Choice depends on individual health circumstances, preferences, reproductive intentions and access to quality counselling.
“The WHO notes that access to safe, quality and affordable contraceptive information and services allows people to determine the number and timing of their children, while access to preferred methods supports autonomy and wellbeing.
“In Nigeria, where access and uptake remain important public-health concerns, the quality of the conversation matters as much as the availability of the method itself. A woman cannot make an informed choice about contraception if her decision is being shaped primarily by fear.
“In the third episode, Abrino, Nzube Robert, Iniobong Efo and Chike Okonkwo discuss men, abortion, responsibility, relationships and pregnancy decision-making.
“The conversation moves beyond the familiar binary of pro-choice versus pro-life and asks a more complicated question: what does responsibility look like when a pregnancy involves two people but only one person’s body undergoes pregnancy?
“Men have a role in reproductive health. They have responsibilities around contraception, pregnancy, relationships, financial support, emotional support and parenting. They also have a role in conversations about abortion. But responsibility is not the same thing as ownership.”
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