Family planning is not just about population control but it is also and more importantly about the health of mothers and children.
In the present circumstances, family planning had almost always been viewed with scepticism in this country, therefore it was heartening to see that the total fertility rate, meaning the number of children per woman on average, had declined to float around four, down from the previous mark of six.
Maternal and child morbidity have also declined but remained in the high range, as according to World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates for 2011, the infant mortality rate was 65 per 1,000 live births as compared to 90 per 1,000 in 1999, whereas maternal mortality ratio stood at 276 per 100,000 in 2011 from 450 in 1999.
The major chunk of the improvement, experts said, began once policy makers associated family planning to the health of both mothers and infants.
Pakistan Population Council Country Director Dr Zeba Sathar while sharing her views in an advocacy seminar on family planning and reproductive health organised by the Aga Khan University (AKU), referred to the many campaigns initiated by policy makers in this regard.
She said that ‘Bachay do hi achay’ campaign proved counterproductive, however, there had been no opposition since family planning had been linked to maternal and child morbidity.
This was not irrelevant as some mothers in our country were so malnourished that they did not have the required food reserves in their bodies to nourish their children.
Prof Anita Zaidi, a senior paediatrician and researcher reminded that the graph of infant mortality, meaning a child dying within the first year of life, was growing at a disturbing rate in the country.
Worse still was the fact that about two thirds of infant mortalities happened within the first month of an infant’s life.
