What Is The Importance Of Family Planning?

Deciding how many children you want to have and the time spacing you wish to maintain between each pregnancy is one of the basic rights of every family. From avoiding adolescent pregnancy to death, there are several concerning factors. These determinants intensify the importance of family planning for everyone wishing to conduct a happy, safe and fulfilling family life.

There are several ways of spreading awareness among people. 

In this article, we are about to explore the importance of family planning. You will also get to know how it can help you create a better future for-

• Yourself.
• The people around you.
• The conditions you live in. 

What Is Family Planning?

The family planning definition is extremely important to understand for the global society today.

It is one of the top 10 public health accomplishments of the 20th century, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

It is the ability of couples and individuals to decide and plan the following—

• Whether they want children.
• How many children do they want.
• The age gap they wish to exist between each child.

You can get a planned family with the use of contraceptives, infertility treatments and menstruation tracking.

Why Should You Do Family Planning?

Other than being a healthy process, family planning has several critical benefits. This kind of planning can help you get through several situations that could otherwise bother and affect your whole life. The same can happen to your spouse, children and other family members.

Let us take a look at some of the major reasons stating the importance of family planning—

Avoiding Unplanned Pregnancy

Unplanned pregnancies can plunge you into many difficulties.

In the USA, nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended. The parents and children, who are born as a result, frequently face disadvantages. The major reason behind this is the absence of awareness.

A woman or a man might consider the fact that they do not want children. Or else they might want them later only when they understand the importance of family planning. 

These challenges can be overcome when you choose family planning, talk to your partner and decide on your future together. 

There are 3 crucial reasons behind unplanned pregnancy and the failed objectives of family planning—

• Firstly, many young men and women lack the motivation to wait until they are ready to get pregnant. 

This fact is partially the result of shifting cultural norms over time. Attitudinal data reveals that premarital sex and childbearing are now significantly less stigmatized than they were a few decades ago.

There is a widespread perception among young women in many low-income communities. They often believe that there are few alluring alternatives to motherhood available to them. This reduces their motivation to avoid getting pregnant. 

• Secondly, the fact that some people who are motivated to avoid pregnancy and understand the importance of family planning are hindered by limitations like understanding the usefulness of different contraceptives. 

For instance, survey results repeatedly demonstrate how hopelessly uneducated teenagers and young adults are regarding the use of various forms of contraception, their safety and effectiveness when used properly, and the significance of using such methods regularly.

• Lastly, unplanned pregnancy is often a result of expensive contraceptives. There are highly effective and irreversible contraceptive methods available. However, their costs prohibit people from applying. 

STD Prevention

Another importance of family planning is the prevention of Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

Couples who utilize contraception may lower their chance of contracting an STD. They usually do it to protect themselves against unintended pregnancies (STD).

Here are some important objectives of family planning that can include the prevention of STDs—

• If you engage in sexual activity, wearing a latex condom correctly from the beginning to end each time can help reduce your chance of contracting an STD.
• The majority of STDs that may spread through vaginal intercourse without a condom can also transmit through oral and anal sex without a condom.
• You cannot determine a person’s STD status by simply looking at them. Since many STDs don’t manifest any symptoms.
• Testing is the only surefire method to find out.
• Although extremely successful in preventing conception, birth control methods like the pill, patch, ring, and IUD do not offer protection against STDs and HIV.

You should also be aware that all STDs, including HIV, are curable. You can take action to protect both your partner’s and your own health the sooner you start your diagnosis and treatment.

Strengthening Maternal Health

Maternal health is greatly impacted by family planning. Globally, the use of contraception prevented around 44% of maternal fatalities in 2008. One theory for how this happens is that using contraception lowers the frequency of high-risk and high-parity deliveries, which lowers maternal mortality. 

The availability of contraceptives also aids in preventing undesired pregnancies, some of which lead to unsafe abortions, which are one of the main causes of maternal fatalities worldwide. 

Therefore, it is crucial that people understand the importance of family planning to strengthen maternal health. 

Economic Considerations

In addition to being a fundamental human right, the choice to determine when and whether to have children is also essential for economic development, particularly for underprivileged women. 

But the absence of access to secure, contemporary methods of contraception undermines this right in far too many developing nations.

When it comes to the economic importance of family planning, we would like to include the following points—

• Fighting Monetary Crisis: When you understand your financial condition, your responsibilities towards your family and your ability to fulfill them, you can design a proper family planning method.
• Fighting Food Crises: If you have a planned family, you can easily fight food crises and gather enough nutrition for each member of your family. 
• Enabling Better Education: The better you plan, the better provision of education you can afford. Most middle-income individuals with more than a couple of children struggle to pay their children’s fees. Therefore, they are unable to admit them to good schools and colleges. 
• Lowering Health Expenditure: Health is an important factor for any family. Therefore, you should not have more members than you can take care of. Ensuring a healthy family is the primary duty of a parent.

Environmental Factors

Family planning will mitigate the environmental risks of overpopulation by lowering fertility rates. 

By 2020, predictably, there would be 777 million fewer people on the planet than there are now. However, this can only happen if the average fertility rate dropped from 2.37 children for every woman to 2.

“Regions with rapid population growth, high fertility, and high unmet demand for family planning commonly coincide with regions of high susceptibility to climate change,” according to a new Population Reference Bureau paper on family planning and climate change adaptation.

Following are some effects of overpopulation on the environment—

Overutilization Of Resources

Population growth will unavoidably contribute to pressures that worsen climate change by increasing deforestation, reducing biodiversity, and increasing pollution and emissions. This is one of the crucial importance of family planning.  

In the end, many scientists think that the additional stress on the planet will cause ecological disruption and collapse that is so severe that it threatens the viability of life on Earth as we know it unless we take action to help minimize further population growth going into the remainder of this century.

Increased Political Unrest and Violence

Overpopulation and environmental disruption-induced shortages have the potential to intensify violence and political upheaval. Warfare over water, land, and energy resources is already taking place in the Middle East and other places, and as the world’s population rises, the unrest is certain to get worse.

Higher Risks Of Disasters

Numerous recent new infections, such as COVID-19, Zika virus, Ebola, and West Nile virus, that have wreaked havoc on people all over the world have their origins in animals or insects before spreading to humans. 

The destruction of wildlife habitats and an increase in human-wildlife interaction are two factors that contribute to the globe entering “a period of increasing epidemic activity.” 

It is now abundantly evident how challenging it is to maintain social distance in a society where there are close to 8 billion individuals.

Importance Of Family Planning- Final Thoughts

An unplanned family can wreck your home and have heavy psychological impacts as well. 

It’s critical to empower people while organizing against anyone who supports the use of compulsion or violence to solve our problems while tackling overpopulation. 

Family planning ppt can be used to derive data about how the lack of it is causing disruptions in different sectors of life and the importance of family planning.

The trajectory of the global population will be significantly changed by initiatives to dispel common misconceptions about contraception, increase women’s autonomy, and provide accurate information about family planning.