Family Planning Essay

Building a family is a shared responsibility between the husband and wife. They must learn about responsible parenthood. Responsible Parenthood is the will and the ability to respond to the needs and aspirations of the family and children. This means that the couple must be sensitive about the needs of the family and their children to be able to be a healthy family. It involves an adequate preparation to plan and decide the number of children they want and when to have them to ensure the health of the whole family. Hence, the community health nurse should make certain that the couples have the knowledge and services to make informed choices on timing, number and spacing of child bearing. The benefits of family planning are the following: 1. Family planning helps couples plan pregnancies that would be least risky to the health of the mother and the child. 2. Family planning helps reduce environmental problems like overcrowding which cause easy transmission of diseases. 3. Family plann9ing helps reduce the incidence of hereditary diseases like mental retardation, psychotic tendencies, blood disorders, etc. 4. Family planning helps especially low-income fathers to be less prone to suffer from illnesses such as hypertension, gastric ulcer, nervous disorders and communicable diseases. 5. Family planning helps the family members live healthy, more productive and fulfilled lives as each has been afforded the chance to discover and develop his potentials. 6. Family planning deduces the rate of population growth, thus enabling social and economic development.