In a wide-ranging seven-part family planning series, The Lancet’s July online edition demonstrates how family planning is closely linked to the well-being of the planet and its population, especially those in low-income countries. POPLINE is pleased to provide links to the articles in The Lancet online issue.

Key points:

• Countries with rapid population growth should consider voluntary family planning programs as their main policy option “to reduce the high unmet need for contraception, unwanted pregnancies, and probirth reproductive norms.”
• By preventing high-risk pregnancies, increased contraceptive use has reduced the maternal mortality ratio by about 26% in little more than a decade. Satisfying unmet need for contraception could prevent another 104,000 maternal deaths per year.
• Policies that slow population growth would probably also have climate-related benefits, such as reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.
• Increasing access to family planning services reduces fertility rates and improves birth spacing, resulting in economic growth.
• A human rights perspective can be used to “identify, reduce, and eliminate barriers to accessing contraception.”

Accompanying the series are a number of comments and viewpoints, including:

• The rebirth of family planning
• Making family planning a national development priority
• Giving women the power to plan their families
• Family planning saves lives, yet investments falter
• Slowing population for wellbeing and development
• Getting wet, clean, and healthy: why households matter
• Family planning: a political issue
• What will it take to eliminate preventable maternal deaths?

Watch a video interview with Professor Herbert Peterson of the Gillings School of Global Public Health who led preparation of the Lancet series, as he explains the link between family planning and global development and distills key points from the series.