Family Planning

What is family planning?
Family planning is the intervention you actively put in place regarding your reproductive health, to improve the general outcome for your family. These reproductive health decisions allow women to control their pregnancies, decide the number of children they can manage and more importantly , adequately space the years between unborn children. 

Factors that contribute to family planning decisions are numerous; the state of a marriage, socioeconomic status of the couple, poor health outcome from past pregnancy. 

Family planning is also a part of the Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights of women, and its goal is to prevent high-risk pregnancies and abortion, which is mostly unsafe in developing countries like Nigeria. Its ultimate goal is to improve the health of women, their children and the whole family.

There are various family planning methods, which include Natural methods such as withdrawal and calendar-based intercourse, Hormonal methods such as contraceptive pills and injectables, Barrier methods such as condoms and cervical caps, Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptives (LARCs) such as Intrauterine Devices (IUD) and Permanent methods such as tubal ligation and vasectomy.

Why are young people included in the talks about family planning?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2019, young adults in developing countries had more than 20 million pregnancies. Half of these pregnancies were unintentional and this resulted in about over 10 million births. This is why it is important to involve young people who are sexually active in family planning talks. It allows young people to control high-risk and unwanted pregnancies which affects their social and economic well-being.

When can you start your family planning?
Family planning is meant for all women of reproductive age, which begins around the age of 15 years old. Sexually active young women can start family planning to avoid high-risk pregnancies and unsafe abortions too, but they will need to be adequately educated by their healthcare provider on the most appropriate method to use.

What is the ideal family planning method for you?
The type of family planning method to use depends on several factors such as individual peculiarity and choices, goal of family planning, desired duration of action, affordability, reliability, availability and risks etc. It is the responsibility of your healthcare provider to help you decide which method is the best for you, based on the factors above.

What family planning method should you avoid using as a young person?
All family planning methods are safe for young people. However, some may be too risky. For example, long-acting methods such as IUDs and permanent methods such as tubal ligation for females and vasectomy for males are discouraged because they are deemed irreversible. It is, therefore, advisable that young people avoid these methods so that they would not affect their reproductive health decisions later in life.

What can you do now to start family planning early?Accessing family planning may be challenging, especially for the first time. Nevertheless, you can always reach out to your healthcare worker for sexual and reproductive health concerns or reach out to our sexual health experts on askthedochq.com for a virtual consultation.

Conclusion
Family planning is a life-saving reproductive health procedure that allows women of reproductive age to control pregnancies and space childbirth accordingly. It is part of the sexual and reproductive health rights that must be held in high esteem. There are various methods of family planning and deciding on a method depends on your goal, desired duration and budget.