World Population Day, 2017 - Celebrating Family Planning

Today, on World Population Day, Community Partners International (CPI) celebrates communities across Myanmar who are using family planning to ensure safer pregnancies and healthier babies.​

Like parents all over the world, Myanmar moms' and dads' first priority is their children's health. Family planning, and birth spacing in particular, help parents ensure that their children grow up healthy.
 
With access to effective family planning support, parents can choose to start their family at the most opportune time and provide their children with the best start in life. They can plan the size of their family to suit their circumstances. For low-income families and those living in remote and conflict-affected communities in Myanmar, these options are crucially important.
 
Birth spacing is an important factor to ensure the health of mothers and children. It means that moms can fully recover after pregnancy and birth, focus on their new baby, and make sure that their next pregnancy, if they choose to have another child, is a healthy one.
 
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a minimum period of two years between giving birth and starting a new pregnancy. Research shows that shorter intervals, particularly 18 months or less, are associated with a higher risk of infant mortality, low birth weight and premature birth.
 
Community Partners International (CPI) trains and equips community-based health workers to educate parents in low-income, remote and conflict-affected communities across Myanmar on the benefits of birth spacing and effective methods of contraception, and support them to plan their families optimally. 
 
We help communities to educate their young people so that they have a better understanding of reproductive health and can make healthy choices as they grow into adulthood. And we support moms to have healthy pregnancies and safe births, and to give newborns the best start in the first crucial days of life.