LONDON (TrustLaw) – It’s well known that good family planning vastly reduces the risk of women dying from pregnancy complications and helps prevent miscarriages and still births.
What is far less recognised is the effect that spacing out pregnancies has on the survival of children way beyond birth.
A report published by the Lancet medical journal on the eve of an international summit on family planning says improving access to contraceptives in developing countries could reduce deaths in young children by 20 percent.
This is largely because increasing the interval between births reduces the chance of babies being low-weight or premature – a major cause of mortality in under-fives.
For anyone in any doubt about the importance of investing in family planning, here are some compelling figures cited by Professor John Cleland, an expert in medical demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
