Healthy timing, spacing of pregnancy essential in family planning

Jun 21 2012

"USAID promotes Healthy Timing and Spacing of Pregnancy as a vital family planning intervention that helps ensure that pregnancies occur at the healthiest times in a woman's life," Maureen Norton, healthy timing and spacing technical adviser for USAID, writes in USAID's "IMPACTblog." "A USAID analysis found that, by preventing closely spaced births, family planning could save the lives of more than 1.6 million children under five annually," she notes. Norton outlines "three key programmatic actions to strengthen family planning as an essential intervention for child survival," including educating families on pregnancy timing, expanding the type of available contraceptives, and enacting "policies to reap the benefits of the demographic dividend." She concludes, "Increasing access to family planning is essential to help women ... and their children survive and stay healthy" (6/19).