Family planning
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Family planning is frequently used to mean that people plan when to have children,[1] using birth control[2][3] and other techniques to implement that plan. Other techniques commonly used include sexuality education[4][3], prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections[3], preconceptional counseling[3] and management, and infertility management[2].
Family planning is sometimes used as a synonym for the use of birth control, though it often includes more.
It is most usually applied to the circumstance of a monogamous female-male couple who wish to limit the number of children they have and/or to control the timing of pregnancy (also known as spacing children).
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Family Planning Services are defined as "educational, comprehensive medical or social activities which enable individuals, including minors, to determine freely the number and spacing of their children and to select the means by which this may be achieved."[4]
Raising a child uses significant amounts of resources: time[5], social, financial[6], environmental. Planning can help assure that resources are available.
- See also: Maternal health and teenage pregnancy
Waiting until mother is at least 18 years old before trying to have children improves maternal and child health.[7]
If additional children are desired, it is healthier for both the mother and child to wait at least 2 years after the previous birth before attempting to conceive (but not more than 5 years).[7] After a miscarriage or abortion, it is healthier to wait at least 6 months.[7]
- See also: Family economics
Childbirth and prenatal health care cost averaged $7,090 for normal delivery in the US in 1996.[8] US Department of Agriculture estimates that a US family will spend an average of $11,000 to $23,000 per year for the first 17 years of child's life on a child born in 2007.[5] (Total inflation adjusted estimated expenditure: $196,000 to $393,000, depending on household income.)[5]
- See also: International Planned Parenthood Federation and United States Agency for International Development
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is the world's largest international source of funding for population and reproductive health programs.
The main goals of the International Conference on Population and Development Program of Action are:
- Universal access to reproductive health services by 2015
- Universal primary education and closing the gender gap in education by 2015
- Reducing maternal mortality by seventy-five percent by 2015
- Reducing infant mortality
- Increasing life expectancy
- HIV infection rates in persons 15-24 years of age should be reduced by 25 percent in the most-affected countries by 2005 and by 25 percent globally by 2010.
China's one-child policy encourages couples to have no more than one child. China's population policy has been credited with a very significant slowing of China's population growth which had been very high before the policy was implemented. It has come under criticism that the implementation of the policy has involved forced abortions and forced sterilization. However, while the punishment of "Unplanned" pregnancy is a fine, both forced abortion and forced sterilization can be charged with intentional assault, which is punished with up to 10 years' imprisonment.
- See also: Title X
Title X of the Public Health Service Act[9], is a US government program dedicated to providing family planning services for those in need.
Title X as a percentage of total public funding to family planning client services has steadily declined from 44% of total expenditures in 1980 to 12% in 2006. Medicaid has increased from 20% to 71% in the same time. In 2006, Medicaid contributed $1.3 billion to public family planning.[10]
Another noted example is Iran, which has succeeded in sharply reducing its birth rate in recent years.
- ^ "Mission Statement". US Dept. of Health and Human Services, Office of Population Affairs.
- ^ a b WHO | Family planning
- ^ a b c d What services do family planning clinics provide? - Health Questions - NHS Direct
- ^ a b US Dept. of Health, Administration for children and families
- ^ a b c "Expenditures on Children by Families, 2007; Miscellaneous Publication Number 1528-2007". United States Department of Agriculture, Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion.
- ^ MsMoney.com - Marriage, Kids & College - Family Planning
- ^ a b c "Healthy Timing and Spacing of Pregnancy: HTSP Messages". USAID. Retrieved on 2008-05-13.
- ^ Mushinski, M. (1998). "Average charges for uncomplicated vaginal, cesarean and VBAC deliveries: Regional variations, United States, 1996.". Statistical Bulletin 79 (3): 17–28.
- ^ US Office of Population Affairs - Legislation
- ^ Sonfield A, Alrich C and Gold RB, Public funding for family planning, sterilization and abortion services, FY 1980–2006, Occasional Report, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2008, No. 38. http://guttmacher.org/pubs/2008/01/28/or38.pdf
- Family
- natalism and antinatalism
- Parental leave
- POPLINE: World's largest reproductive health database, part of The INFO Project
- Organizations
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