family planning

Family planning can save lives.  Consecutive, un-spaced births place mothers and their children at risk - both physically and socially.  Mothers face increased risk of nutrient deficiency, physical injury, illness or death during pregnancy and childbirth and financial inability to protect, raise and look after the health of their existing children.  The closer a number of pregnancies are together, the more likely a child is to be born anaemic, low weight, premature or malnourished.  Family planning empowers women to choose the number and spacing of their children and we know that when women are given this choice they tend to have smaller families.

This need for family planning is also compounded by the fact that there are over 215 million women around the world that want to use contraceptives but cannot access them.  Providing access to contraceptives and meeting this need can transform communities by giving families the basic human right to plan for and decide the number of children they will have.

The World Health Organisation estimates that in some of the countries that Marie Stopes works in only 25% - 35% of women use modern contraceptives, which leaves many women at risk of an unintended pregnancy, a sexually transmitted infection or HIV/AIDS.

Her Story

One woman we helped in the Philippines, 28 year old Maleah, came to our tubal ligation outreach program wanting to find a way to plan her family. With four children already, Maleah and her family live in a small house with only two rooms, one of which they all sleep in at night. Through talking to our team members they discovered that Maleah has epilepsy, making her ineligible for a tubal ligation. The team then explained other options and Maleah decided that she would have an intrauterine device which would provide her with peace of mind for the next five years. At the end of her consultation she said that she was ‘…so happy now, as I can think about the future and how I am going to be a mother for the children that I have. I am so happy that they will grow up with more’.