Family planning
Family planning encompasses a range of techniques that empower individuals, particularly women, to manage their reproductive health, including fertility control and the timing and spacing of children. This aspect of healthcare plays a crucial role in promoting the well-being of women and children, allowing families to allocate resources more effectively. Effective family planning services not only include access to birth control but also provide education and counseling, which are vital for informed decision-making. While family planning methods are widely accessible in industrialized nations, there remains a significant gap in availability in many developing countries, where millions of women still face unmet needs for these services.
Family planning can also help reduce adolescent pregnancies, which can lead to adverse health outcomes for both mothers and infants. It offers women the opportunity to avoid high-risk pregnancies and minimizes the necessity for abortions, which can pose significant health risks. Ideally, family planning initiatives should prioritize voluntary participation and respect cultural values, incorporating both modern and traditional contraception methods. Modern methods, such as hormonal contraceptives and IUDs, tend to be more effective, whereas traditional methods include practices like abstinence and calendar-based approaches. Overall, family planning is not only a personal choice but also a vital component of public health strategies and population control efforts worldwide.
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Family planning
Family planning refers to a variety of techniques that allow women to control their fertility, couples to determine the number of children they have, and to control the spacing of the babies’ births. Birth control is an important aspect of family planning, although the most effective family planning programs also incorporate other elements, such as education and counseling. While family planning methods are available to many women and couples in the industrialized world, they are far less available in developing countries. The World Health Organization estimates that as of 2013 about 222 million women in developing countries have an unmet need for family planning services.
Overview
In public health terms, family planning is considered an important aspect of health care that promotes the health and well-being of women and children as well as the healthy development of families and communities. Family planning allows a woman to control if and when she has children, a vital component of female well-being and autonomy. It also allows a woman or couple to limit the size of their family, enabling more resources to be available for each child, and to space out the birth of those children, resulting in better health for the mother and children alike; closely spaced births are associated with increased infant and maternal mortality.
Family planning can reduce the rate of adolescent pregnancies, which are associated with higher infant mortality, low birth weight, and preterm birth. Family planning services also allow women to avoid high-risk pregnancies (e.g., if the mother is older, in poor health, or has been exposed to a disease that might harm an unborn child), and also reduces the need for abortion, which may also carry a high risk to the mother. Finally, family planning services are a key aspect of population control, especially as applied in countries such as the People’s Republic of China, where for decades many families have been legally limited to only one child.
Ideally, family planning services are voluntary, are readily available, take into account the desires and cultural values of the woman and/or couple, and are provided within a comprehensive educational and counseling framework, along with other reproductive health services. Both modern and traditional methods may be used in the service of family planning, although modern methods are generally preferred when available and permissible within a culture, due to their greater effectiveness (over 99 percent for some methods when used correctly).
Modern methods of contraception include birth control pills, including both the combined (the steroid hormones progestogen and estrogen) and progestogen-only pills; progestogen implants placed under the skin in the upper arm, that are effective for three to five years; injectable forms of progestogen or a combination of progestogen and estrogen; the intrauterine device (IUD); barrier methods such as male and female condoms, the cervical cap, and the contraceptive sponge; sterilization of men and women; and emergency contraception (progestogen pills that may be taken up to five days after unprotected sex).
Traditional methods of birth control include abstinence, coitus interruptus (withdrawal), exclusive breastfeeding, and calendar-based methods that limit intercourse to the days in a woman’s menstrual cycle when she is least likely to conceive.
Bibliography
Engleman, Peter C. A History of the Birth Control Movement in America. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2011. Print.
Holz, Rose. The Birth Control Clinic in a Marketplace World. Rochester: U of Rochester P, 2012. Print.
Melcher, Mary S. Pregnancy, Motherhood, and Choice in Twentieth-Century Arizona. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2012. Print.
Office of Women’s Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “Birth Control Methods Fact Sheet.” Office of Women’s Health. US Dept. of Health and Human Services, 2009. Web. 14 July 2013.
Seltzer, Judith R. The Origins and Evolution of Family Planning Programs in Developing Countries. Santa Monica: RAND, 2002. Print.
Shoupe, Donna, ed. Contraception. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley, 2011. Print.
World Health Organization. “Family Planning.” Fact sheet No. 351. World Health Organization. WHO, 2013. Web. 14 July 2013.
Zorea, Aharon W. Birth Control. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2012. Print.