18 March 2010
Some weeks ago the Canadian Government announced a major initiative to champion maternal and child health as its legacy project as hosts of the 2010 G8 Summit.
IPPF welcomes the priority to be given to saving women’s lives. But yesterday, a statement from the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lawrence Cannon, to the Canadian Foreign Affairs Committee indicated that the government’s policy is to exclude family planning from the initiative, stating, "It does not deal in any way, shape or form with family planning. Indeed, the purpose of this is to be able to save lives".
Minister Cannon went on to state that no other country has raised any concerns about the proposals for the initiative nor have they raised any issues about the exclusion of family planning.
Decades of evidence clearly shows that family planning is one of the key components of reducing maternal mortality and there is a global consensus that the ability to plan one’s family and space births is one of the 4 pillars of maternal health and a critical component in newborn and child health.
No country has made significant inroads to improving maternal health without also having widespread access to family planning in place.
The Guttmacher Institute states that “the direct health benefits of meeting the need for both family planning and maternal and newborn health services would be dramatic. Unintended pregnancies would drop by more than two thirds, from 75 million in 2008 to 22 million per year.
70% of maternal deaths would be averted—a decline from 550,000 to 160,000.
44% of newborn deaths would be averted—a decline from 3.5 million to 1.9 million.”
Only by including family planning can this be realized.
IPPF is deeply concerned that excluding family planning and contraception from a global maternal health initiative would be disastrous for women, especially poor women in poor countries, and would severely undermine all attempts to improve maternal health and reduce maternal and child deaths.
Only last year all G8 leaders signed the Consensus for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, which stipulates that “comprehensive family planning advice, services and supplies” are critical to improving maternal, newborn and child health.
IPPF is urging the G8 to fulfil its commitments to maternal and newborn health by ensuring family planning is central to its proposed new initiative.
Already, 215 million women around the world who want to plan their families cannot access family planning services.
If the G8 maternal health initiative excludes family planning we will be failing these women and putting millions more in the same position. A situation that would be unacceptable in G8 countries.
The ways to improve maternal health and reduce maternal deaths are well understood, relatively simple and mostly low cost.
Based on the evidence and drawing on global consensus, the Guttmacher Institute has identifies “4 pillars” for saving women’s lives:
• Family planning and other reproductive health services
• Skilled care during and immediately following pregnancy and childbirth
• Emergency obstetric care when life threatening complications develop
• Immediate postnatal care for mothers and newborns
Meeting the unmet need for family planning and contraceptive prevalence rates are key strategies singled out in the Millennium Development Goals to specifically improve maternal health and save mother’s lives, goals that all G8 countries have signed up to.
Ensuring that family planning is included in the G8 initiative will be critical to improving the health and wellbeing of millions of women, and their children, around the world.
Excluding family planning will undermine the initiative from the very start.
The G8 must increase and demonstrate its support to programmes that are proven to reduce maternal mortality and improve maternal and child health.
The G8 must support family planning in the G8 Maternal Health Initiative, as it did only one year ago.