U.N., World Bank Call For Improved Access To Family Planning On Eve Of World Population Day

Main Category: Sexual Health / STDs
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 14 Jul 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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The United Nations Population Fund called for more action to promote birth control, gender equality and reproductive health in recognition of World Population Day on Friday, Reuters reports. According to UNFPA, contraception can prevent 2.7 million infant deaths annually, reduce poverty, slow population growth and ease pressure on the environment. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on governments of developing nations to adhere to their commitments to meet women's needs for contraceptives by 2015 (Sibonney, Reuters, 7/10).

The World Bank echoed the call for increased access to contraception and family planning services in a report released Thursday, AFP/Yahoo! News reports (Zeitvogel, AFP/Yahoo! News, 7/10). The report, titled "Fertility Regulation Behaviors and Their Costs: Contraception and Unintended Pregnancies in Africa and Eastern Europe and Central Asia," said despite a significant increase in the global use of contraception worldwide, 51 million unintended pregnancies occur each year to women not using contraception, and another 25 million pregnancies occur because women's contraception fails or they use it incorrectly. According to the World Bank, high birth rates are "closely allied" with fragile health, little or no education and extreme poverty (World Bank release, 7/10). Moreover, about 68,000 women die each year, and about 5.3 million suffer temporary or permanent disability as a result of unsafe abortions, according to the report.

Although birth rates have declined in the past three decades, women in 35 countries -- including Afghanistan, Djibouti, East Timor, Yemen and 31 sub-Saharan African countries -- have an average of five or more children (AFP/Yahoo! News, 7/10). According to Reuters, fewer than 5% of the lowest-income young people in developing countries use contraception. In Afghanistan, only 4% of people use any sort of contraceptive, and 78% have never heard of family planning, according to UNFPA (Reuters, 7/10).

The World Bank report says that pregnancies that are less than 15 months apart more than double mortality risks of pregnant women. In addition, teenage pregnancies carry a higher risk of obstetric complications, but teens are less likely to receive adequate care, making them twice as likely to die during childbirth as women over the age of 20, according to the report. "Giving women access to modern contraception and family planning also helps to boost economic growth while reducing high birth rates so strongly lined with endemic poverty, poor education, and high numbers of maternal and infant deaths," Joy Phumaphi, World Bank vice president for human development, said (World Bank release, 7/10).

The World Bank said that available and correctly used contraception also would reduce HIV transmission. The report says, "If contraception were provided to the 137 million women who lack access, maternal mortality would decline by 25% to 35%" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 7/10). UNFPA reports that 536,000 women die annually from pregnancy-related causes, 99% of whom live in developing countries. In addition, about 10 million women annually experience a pregnancy-related injury or disability such as infection, infertility or depression.

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Ban in a statement said, "The rate of death for women as they give birth remains the starkest indicator of the disparity between rich and poor" (Reuters, 7/10). Sadia Chowdhury, senior reproductive and child health specialist at the World Bank, said a global approach that includes better access to both contraception and education is needed to decrease the birth rate in countries where it remains high and threatens the lives of women.

"Girls' and women's education is just as important in reducing birth rates as supplying contraception," Chowdhury said, adding, "Women's education provides life-saving knowledge, builds job skills that allow her to join the work force and marry later in life [and] gives her the power to say how many children she wants and when" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 7/10). Purnima Mane, deputy executive director of UNFPA, said, "Providing better education to women is critical in order for them to make the right decisions, not only for themselves, but also for their families and their children" (Reuters, 7/10).

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