Denis Bukenya, of Naguru Teenage Health Centre, has urged men to support their wives when there pregnant.
At an Engage Men campaign meeting in Kamwokya he cautioned men to understand the harm they can inflict on pregnant women if they fail to support them. He said: “When your wife is pregnant and you give her a jerry-can to go and fetch water and expect her to take basin of water in the bathroom and make your breakfast. [If] you make a woman who is eight months dig, prepare your tea and bathing water – where is the love?”
Urging the men to help their wives to give them time to prepare for hospital, Mr Bukenya also emphasized the importance of men going to hospital with their wives during antenatal visits. He called upon men to have ‘mental maturity’ to undertake the task required to start a family.
A participant called Geoffrey said that some men were irresponsible. “When you are to make a family there must an element of prepared. You cannot get someone’s daughter and take her in yourself confused house which is small. You are going to father children and should think of their education. You should also think of the medical expenses because even if you go to Mulago hospital they will ask you to touch deep in your pockets.”
Two men gave testimony of the need women have during pregnancy. Yazid Lubanga explained that it is hard for a woman to bend during pregnancy. “When a woman reaches seven to eight months it is hard to bend and wash her private parts and back. I bathed my wife when she was pregnant,” he pointed out. Luyimbazi noted that he helped wash his wife’s knickers and helped massage her when she was pregnant.
The country manager of Community Health and Information Network (CHAIN) Uganda noted that health workers were sometimes angry with pregnant women in Uganda, because most of the time they were dirty and called upon the men to help their wives during pregnancy.
