The relation of family planning to maternal and child health and paediatrics

Abstract

There is considerable confusion as to the meaning of the term ‘family planning’. It is often understood to be any and every means available for lowering the growth rate of the population (population control), particularly in countries where national priorities are given to check the population. The World Health Organisation (Report 483, 1971) defines family planning as ‘a way of thinking and living that is adopted voluntarily, on the basis of knowledge, attitudes and responsible decisions by individuals and couples, in order to promote health and welfare of the family group and thus effectively contribute to the social development of the country’. Further, WHO (Report 476, 1971; Report 442, 1970) states that family planning refers to practices that help individuals to attain certain objectives: to avoid unwanted births, to bring about wanted births, to regulate intervals between pregnancies, to control the time at which births occur in relation to the ages of the parents and to determine the number of children in the family.