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Family Planning
Family planning is a vital part of assuring healthy women, babies and families. When women plan their pregnancies, they are more likely to seek prenatal care, improving their own health and the health of the baby. Family planning helps women and their partners have children when they are physically, emotionally and financially prepared to take on the responsibility of a child.
Roughly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned.1 While pregnancy intendedness is not the only factor that determines healthy outcomes for moms and babies, unintended and unwanted pregnancies do have important health, economic and social consequences. Unplanned pregnancies tend to result in lower birth weights, premature births, and higher rates of infant illness and death. The infant mortality rate in the United States is higher than 28 other industrialized nations,2 and the number of low birth weight babies has increased over the last decade.3 The rate of fetal alcohol syndrome has risen sharply, and the maternal mortality rate has not declined for 10 years.4
AMCHP has built a solid foundation in women's health by promoting best practices and conducting advocacy and education on issues related to pregnant women, new mothers, and their infants. The Women's and Perinatal Health Program emphasizes disease prevention and wellness promotion throughout the primary reproductive years to ensure better birth outcomes and good health for women as they grow older. As we move forward, we aim to further strengthen our members' capacity in women's health by working to assure positive health outcomes for women regardless of intent or ability to have children, and by addressing issues such as chronic disease and injury, healthy lifestyles, and health disparities.
What is Family Planning?
Family planning is much more than birth control. The Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP) supports family planning in its broadest sense. Planning for a family means making conscious and informed decisions about the initiation of sexual activity and the safe and effective use of contraceptives to time a healthy pregnancy.
Comprehensive family planning should include a broad range of clinical and social options for adults and adolescents before, during and after pregnancy, such as abstinence, comprehensive sexuality education, contraception, abortion, parenting education and adoption. AMCHP believes that family planning should be a standard part of basic health care for all women of childbearing age and their partners. All adults and adolescents should have universal access to family planning services that are culturally competent and age-appropriate. AMCHP believes that all private and public health insurance should cover all FDA-approved birth control, including devices and procedures used for emergency contraception.
Comprehensive family planning also includes educating patients about future pregnancies to ensure their physical and mental health and that of their babies. Information about the importance of good nutrition, particularly folic acid, and the adverse effects of using alcohol and tobacco during pregnancy can enable women, adolescents and their partners to make decisions for a healthier pregnancy and a healthier baby. Preconception counseling is integral to reducing low birth weight and infant mortality and in improving women’s health.
Project Areas
Related Resources
- Medicaid 1115 Family Planning Demonstration Waiver Programs, an issues brief from the National Academy for State Health Policy. July 2007.
- Medicaid’s Role in Family Planning, a new issue brief, reviews Medicaid’s part in financing and providing access to family planning services for low-income women. October 2007.
Summary: Medicaid is the largest source of public funding for family planning services in the United States, financing contraceptive services for millions of low-income women.
Twelve percent of women of reproductive age rely on Medicaid for their care, ranging from 6% of women in Nevada and New Hampshire to 24% of women in Maine. Over the past decade and a half, 26 states have initiated special programs that extend family planning services to low-income individuals who are not otherwise eligible for Medicaid. The issue brief by the Guttmacher Institute and the Kaiser Family Foundation provides an in-depth examination of:
- coverage through Medicaid for women of reproductive age at the national and state levels;
- the range of services covered as part of family planning;
- state-initiated family planning expansions and their impact in reducing unintended pregnancies and births, as well as abortions; and
- recent changes in Medicaid policy, particularly the federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, and their potential effects on the provision of family planning services.
Last Updated
November 14, 2007
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