Safe motherhood through family planning
Network 9(1): 8
1987
ISSN/ISBN: 0270-3637 PMID: 12281273 Document Number: 562138
Family planning is an alternative guarantee of safe motherhood, to the option of providing improved obstetric care. Family planning eliminates many high-risk births, and reduces the risk due to sheer number of births, but also may decrease the risk from numbers of dangerous illegal abortions. In some countries, notably Latin America, illegal abortions are responsible for half the maternal deaths, because of consequent infection and hemorrhage. In Chile, for example, deaths from illegal abortion fell from 118 to 24 per 100,000 live births between 1964 and 1979, after expansion of family planning services. Overall maternal deaths fell from 280 to 80 per 100,000 live births, and the birth rate fell 33%. The majority of women with 3 or more children in developing countries want no more, and 2/3 of such women were not using contraception. If people knew that pregnancy is almost always more dangerous than using any kind of contraception, the demand for family planning would probably increase. A study of maternal deaths in Bali showed that pregnancy is 200 times more likely to kill a mother than using contraception. Contraception can also improve maternal survival for those who desire large families, by helping them space their children.