Programs or services designed to assist the family in controlling reproduction by either improving or diminishing fertility.
Methods used to anticipate children, when they shall be born and the number to be born.
The use of a range of methods of fertility regulation to help individuals or couples to avoid unwanted births; bring about wanted births; produce a change in the number of children born; regulate the intervals between pregnancies; and control the time at which births occur in relation to the age of parents. It may include an array of activities ranging from birth planning, the use of contraception and the management of infertility to sex education, marital counselling and even genetic counselling. Family planning has succeeded the older term, birth control, which is now felt to be too negative and restrictive in meaning. Birth control can be separately defined as the prevention of pregnancy by contraception, abortion, sterilization or abstinence from coitus.
The use of contraception to control the number of children in a family.
Efforts to determine the number of children and their spacing in a family by the use of birth control methods.
Deliberate limiting or spacing of the number of children born to a couple.
The spacing of conception of children according to the wishes of the parents rather than to chance. It is accomplished by practicing some form of birth control.
Family planning refers to the intentional regulation or interval arrangement of childbearing. Various strategies are used in family planning, including a range of contraception methods.