June 2018 · Volume 7 · Issue 6 Page 2524 International Journal of Reproduction, Contraception, Obstetrics and Gynecology Singh S et al. Int J Reprod Contracept Obstet Gynecol. 2018 Jun;7(6):2524-2526 www.ijrcog.org pISSN 2320-1770 | eISSN 2320-1789 Commentary Understanding unmet need for family planning Srishti Singh 1 *, Meenakshi Kalhan 1 , J. S. Malik 1 , Anuj Jangra 1 , Nitika Sharma 1 , Srijan Singh 2 INTRODUCTION Every day about 830 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth and 99% of these maternal deaths occur in developing countries. 1 Unintended pregnancies are an important cause of illness during pregnancy, complications at the time of birth and maternal deaths apart from contributing to higher fertility rates and population growth. The continuous increase in population is a serious global concern and a major obstacle for the socio-economic development. According to World Population Prospects 2015 Revision, India (1.3 billion) remains the second most populous country in the world only next to China. 2 India harbours 18% of the world’s population in only 2.4% of the global land mass. Coincidentally it also houses almost 17.3% of the world’s protected couples and 20% of the world’s eligible couples with unmet need. 3 Therefore, large population size of India not only impacts its own but also the global health indicators. Control over fertility is important not only because of its far-reaching implications on prosperity and overall growth of the nation, but also because of its impact on the freedom of young women to lead life of their own choice. India launched the National Family Planning Programme in 1952 thus becoming the first country in the world to do so. Since then, the family planning programme in India has under gone dramatic transitions; evolved from a targeted approach to a target free approach and has now been anointed as a critical intervention to reduce maternal and child mortality and morbidity beyond a simple strategy for achieving population stabilisation. Despite these measures, India’s population continues to grow at a decadal growth rate of 17.64% with a crude birth rate of 21.6 per 1000 estimated mid-year population. 4 The desired Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 2.1 could not be achieved till date. 5 Concept of unmet need for family planning Unmet need for family planning is a valuable concept that is widely used for advocacy, development of family planning policies and the implementation and monitoring ABSTRACT Unmet need represents the gap between women’s reproductive intentions and their contraceptive behavior. There are some 225 million women in the world who want to use safe and effective family planning methods are unable to do so. Control over fertility is very important not only because of its far-reaching implications on prosperity and overall growth of the nation, but also because of its impact on the freedom of young women to lead life of their own choice. Reduction in unmet need for family planning is critical for the overall development of the society. Combination of the mutually reinforcing effects of investments in education, health and family planning programmes is needed. Keywords: Contraceptives, Family planning, Need, Unmet 1 Department of Community Medicine, Pt. B. D. Sharma PGIMS, Rohtak, Haryana, India 2 Department of Pediatrics, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India Received: 13 March 2018 Accepted: 21 April 2018 *Correspondence: Dr. Srishti Singh, E-mail: srishti16june@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2320-1770.ijrcog20182384