Background

India was the first country in the world to have a Family Planning program in 1952. The program was launched to manage the expected growth in population in the coming years of the 20th century. The program was also focussing on creating awareness about family planning and how it affects maternal and child health, both mortality and morbidity, how it affects the economic balance not just for a family, but for the community and the country. 

India, the second most populous country of the world, harbors 17.7% of the world’s population in only 2.4% of the global land mass. Coincidentally it also houses almost 17.3% of the world’s couples using contraceptives and 20% of world’s eligible couples with unmet need. Therefore, large population size of India not only impacts its own but also the global health indicators.

India became the first country in the world to initiate the family planning program in 1952 with the goal of lowering fertility and slowing the population growth rate.

Since October 1997, the services and interventions under the Family Welfare Program and the Child Survival and Safe Motherhood Program have been integrated with the Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) Program, addressing aspects such as client choice, service quality, gender issues and underserved groups, including adolescents.

In 2012 the ‘London Summit on Family Planning’ was held against this backdrop to bring back the focus on family planning globally. It further paved the way for increased investment (by countries, national/international agen­cies, academia, and the private sector) in expanding access to family planning services and knowledge mechanisms to an additional 120 million women and girls in the world’s poorest countries by 2020.

As a subsequent action, the Government of India adopted a new approach, which places a well-defined focus to the family planning efforts under a larger and more comprehensive umbrella of RMNCH+A (Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and Adolescents) program. This paradigm shift was adopted recognizing the need and long-term goal of addressing a target free approach (beyond the simple strategy of achieving population stabilization), under the larger purview of improving maternal and child (and adolescent) health in India.

Under the aegis of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, the Government of Bihar launched Mission Parivar Vikas in November 2016 as part of 145 districts with high fertility (TFR above 3.0). The State Health Society, under the leadership of the Executive Director, SHSB, has been able to augment the program reaching by making available FP services across all blocks of Bihar. 

More information about Mission Parivar Vikas can be outsourced from current website: Click here

Since then, Bihar has accelerated its interventions to focus on the rollout of new contraceptives, institutionalization of fixed day services with aggressive focus on quality in family planning, revitalizing Postpartum and Post Abortion Family Planning services, enhanced focus on male participation, and community based schemes through ASHAs, streamlining and strengthening commodity security, Public Private Partnership etc. The government is also harnessing the expertise of various partners in the field of advocacy, capacity building, IEC and BCC through a new focused communications campaign, programme management, quality improvement, evaluation and assessments, feasibility studies, development of resource material and E- learning modules, software development, social marketing, social franchising and provision of skilled human resource for successful implementation of the programme. Raising a family is a responsibility greater than any other. It is of utmost importance for every married couple to be aware of their reproductive health rights and have access to quality family planning services and methods. The freedom to decide how many children to have and when to have them should lie solely with the concerned couple and needs to be made collectively by them.

Family planning helps couples make informed choices about their sexual and reproductive health and promotes responsible parenthood. It’s information and services helps couples plan for their families and ensure healthy spacing between children. By exposing a woman to fewer pregnancies in her lifetime, family planning reduces her lifetime risk of illness and death associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Moreover family planning prevents unwanted, mistimed or high-risk pregnancies, many of which pose a threat to the woman’s life and health, thus ensuring a healthy mother and child.