Family planning saves lives
Family planning programmes help millions of men and women by:
- providing reproductive health care that saves lives
- preventing unintended pregnancies
- and ensuring that all women and couples can decide freely the number of children they want, when to have them and how many to have.
Family planning saves women's and children's lives
Avoiding unintended pregnancies could prevent at least a quarter of all maternal deaths in developing countries. Using contraception helps avoid unsafe abortions to end unwanted pregnancies.
Spacing pregnancies at least two years apart helps women have healthier children and improves the chances of infant's survival by an estimated 50 percent.
Limiting births to a woman's healthiest childbearing years also improves her children's chances of surviving and remaining healthy.
Family planning enables women to:
- Space births. This can prevent an average of one in four infant deaths. When births are spaced less than two years apart, particularly less than 18 months, infants are more likely to be premature and have a low birth weight.
- Postpone early, high-risk pregnancies. Pregnancy and childbirth are the leading causes of death for girls aged 14 - 19 years.
- Prevent unplanned pregnancies. More than one third of all pregnancies are unplanned. 120-150 million women worldwide who want to limit or space their pregnancies have no means to do so.
Unplanned pregnancies can have a huge impact on the health of the mother. They may result in children being born too closely together or too early in life. They may also lead to the death of the mother if she resorts to unsafe abortion. It is estimated that 78,000 women die annually as a result of unsafe abortion.
An unplanned pregnancy may also be unwanted if the woman has been sexually coerced or raped.
Family planning offers men and women more choices
Effective contraception and family planning methods increase men's and women's opportunity to continue their education, seek employment and increase community involvement.