Introduction

Family planning helps people have the desired number of children, which as a result improves the health of mothers and contributes to the nation’s social and economic development. In most developing countries, including Ethiopia, it is common practice for women to have too many children, too close to one another. As a consequence, the population size of the country has grown dramatically but economic growth has not kept in parallel with it. Such an unbalanced population size will inevitably have a negative impact on the wellbeing of the nation. Family planning is one of the strategies which is proving to be effective in tackling these problems.

In this study session, you will learn about the problems resulting from having many children, the impact on the health of mothers and children, population size and growth and its social, economic and health consequences, population pressures on the environment, the benefits of family planning, and the current family planning programmes in Ethiopia.