It's about time: WHO and partners release programming strategies for postpartum family planning

Since 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been receiving an increasing number of requests from country programs for strategies to create or strengthen voluntary family planning programs for women in the first year after childbirth. During this extended postpartum period, 95% of women in low- and middle-income countries want to avoid a pregnancy within the next 2 years, but 70% are not using contraception.¹

In collaboration with the Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP) of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and several other partners, WHO produced the “Statement for Collective Action for Postpartum Family Planning” to emphasize the importance of postpartum family planning (PPFP) and to offer general approaches for addressing unmet need and expanding the range of contraceptive options during the postpartum period.² The global health community rallied in support of this obvious, but often overlooked, group of women in need of services. The Statement received official endorsements from additional donor governments, including Australia and the United Kingdom, and from family planning stakeholders, such as the United Nations Population Fund and the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

The 2012 London Summit on Family Planning coalesced renewed international commitment for family planning and highlighted PPFP's potential in accelerating progress toward Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 (to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health, respectively). Some policy makers and program managers expressed uncertainty, however, about incorporating PPFP into their unique national and local contexts, especially in …