According to United Nations reports, about 76 million people are added to the world population every year, which is estimated to reach 9.2 billion by 2050. While many countries have managed to reduce the fertility rate (some even to the extent that they now want to increase it), the majority of the least developed countries are still facing high population growth rates.

It is estimated that more than 200 million women in developing countries who would like to postpone childbearing, space births or stop having children do not have access to any form of contraception even if they are aware and can afford it. It is either not available or they are not allowed by their husbands to use it which therefore becomes a major reason for uncontrolled population growth in developing countries.

In developed countries however, an improvement in women’s status and access to family planning (FP) facilities has been a major factor in population control. The importance of FP and improved maternal and reproductive health cannot be denied in any way. Population planning services not only control population growth but they are also important for improving the health of women and their children.

Access to FP and reproductive health services could prevent nearly a third of more than 500,000 maternal deaths besides curtailing the risk of chronic illness or disability for many and by allowing women to delay motherhood, space births, avoid unsafe abortion and stop childbearing when they want.

When a woman is able to plan and adequately space births she is more likely to survive pregnancy and childbirth, enjoy better health and have healthier babies.

A child born to a woman who has not fully recovered from the previous birth is often underweight or premature and has an increased risk of dying before the age of five or contracting infectious disease during childhood.

With a smaller family, parents are able to provide better health and education facilities, thus ensuring a better life for them.

Despite antenatal and postnatal care and increase in skilled birth attendants, 15 per cent of women are likely to experience serious complications during pregnancy or childbirth and require emergency or obstetric care with increased risk for each childbirth.

FP is considered one of the most cost-effective ways to improve maternal and child health, yet in most developing countries it does not receive due attention.

While FP services are an important tool for keeping the family size small and ensuring the health of women and children, universal access to reproductive health services is essential to achieve most of the millennium development goals (MDGs), adopted in 2000 and set to be achieved by 2015.

Besides reducing child mortality (goal 4) and improving maternal health (goal 5), reduction in population growth paves the way to achieving goals to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (goal 1) in developing countries as well as to ensure universal primary education (goal 2).

Rapid population growth in poor countries increases the burden on already strained financial and natural resources, badly affecting the government’s efforts to provide food, clean water and basic health care. A reduction in population growth would mean that the government would have to take care of fewer people and hence would be able to provide better food, health and education facilities, in turn reducing hunger and poverty. In the long run, governments would be able to invest spare funds in the development sector resulting in overall economic growth.

Girls’ education is closely related to marriage and childbearing. With increased chances of education, they marry late and have fewer and healthier children. High population growth is an extra burden on natural resources like land and water as their demand increases with increased population.

The need for more land for increasing population leads to rapid deforestation, which in turn affects climate change. Water scarcity is becoming more severe and widespread in many Middle Eastern and African countries, most of which have high rates of population growth thus exacerbating the declining per capita availability of fresh water. (goal 7: ensure environmental sustainability).

Above all that, a woman’s ability to plan her family is a basic human right and is a key factor in ensuring gender equality. It helps to empower women to make the choices and decisions that affect their lives.

And last but not least, men have to be equal partners in improving maternal health, especially in developing countries, since they are the ones who make decisions regarding family size, timing of pregnancy and whether women should have access to health care for themselves and their children.

— Rizwana Naqvi