Experts estimate that nearly 60 percent of all U.S. pregnancies--and 81 percent of pregnancies among adolescents--are unintended. Yet the topic of preventing these unintended pregnancies has long been treated gingerly because of personal sensitivities and public controversies, especially the angry debate over abortion. Additionally, child welfare advocates long have overlooked the connection between pregnancy planning and the improved well-being of families and communities that results when children are wanted. Now, current issues--health care and welfare reform, and the new international focus on population--are drawing attention to the consequences of unintended pregnancy. In this climate The Best Intentions offers a timely exploration of family planning issues from a distinguished panel of experts. This committee sheds much-needed light on the questions and controversies surrounding unintended pregnancy. The book offers specific recommendations to put the United States on par with other developed nations in terms of contraceptive attitudes and policies, and it considers the effectiveness of over 20 pregnancy prevention programs. The Best Intentions explores problematic definitions--"unintended" versus "unwanted" versus "mistimed"--and presents data on pregnancy rates and trends. The book also summarizes the health and social consequences of unintended pregnancies, for both men and women, and for the children they bear. Why does unintended pregnancy occur? In discussions of "reasons behind the rates," the book examines Americans' ambivalence about sexuality and the many other social, cultural, religious, and economic factors that affect our approach to contraception. The committee explores the complicated web of peer pressure, life aspirations, and notions of romance that shape an individual's decisions about sex, contraception, and pregnancy. And the book looks at such practical issues as the attitudes of doctors toward birth control and the place of contraception in both health insurance and "managed care." The Best Intentions offers frank discussion, synthesis of data, and policy recommendations on one of today's most sensitive social topics. This book will be important to policymakers, health and social service personnel, foundation executives, opinion leaders, researchers, and concerned individuals. May

A history of the World Health Organization, covering major achievements in its seventy years while also highlighting the organization's internal tensions. This account by three leading historians of medicine examines how well the organization has pursued its aim of everyone, everywhere attaining the highest possible level of health.

This book analyzes the origins and rationale of family planning programs and how they have evolved based on experience in different country settings.

This document is one of two evidence-based cornerstones of the World Health Organization's (WHO) new initiative to develop and implement evidence-based guidelines for family planning. The first cornerstone, the Medical eligibility criteria for contraceptive use (third edition) published in 2004, provides guidance for who can use contraceptive methods safely. This document, the Selected practice recommendations for contraceptive use (second edition), provides guidance for how to use contraceptive methods safely and effectively once they are deemed to be medically appropriate. The recommendations contained in this document are the product of a process that culminated in an expert Working Group meeting held at the World Health Organization, Geneva, 13-16 April 2004.

This booklet is based on the Estimates and Projections of Family Planning Indicators 2019, which includes estimates at the global, regional and country level of contraceptive prevalence, unmet need for family planning and SDG indicator 3.7.1 "Proportion of women who have their need for family planning satisfied by modern methods".

The "contraceptive revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s introduced totally new contraceptive options and launched an era of research and product development. Yet by the late 1980s, conditions had changed and improvements in contraceptive products, while very important in relation to improved oral contraceptives, IUDs, implants, and injectables, had become primarily incremental. Is it time for a second contraceptive revolution and how might it happen? Contraceptive Research and Development explores the frontiers of science where the contraceptives of the future are likely to be found and lays out criteria for deciding where to make the next R&D investments. The book comprehensively examines today's contraceptive needs, identifies "niches" in those needs that seem most readily translatable into market terms, and scrutinizes issues that shape the market: method side effects and contraceptive failure, the challenge of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and the implications of the "women's agenda." Contraceptive Research and Development analyzes the response of the pharmaceutical industry to current dynamics in regulation, liability, public opinion, and the economics of the health sector and offers an integrated set of recommendations for public- and private-sector action to meet a whole new generation of demand.

The striking upsurge in population growth rates in developing countries at the close of World War II gained force during the next decade. From the 1950s to the 1970s, scholars and advocacy groups publicized the trend and drew troubling conclusions about its economic and ecological implications. Private educational and philanthropic organizations, government, and international organizations joined in the struggle to reduce fertility. Three decades later this movement has seen changes beyond anyone's most optimistic dreams, and global demographic stabilization is expected in this century. The Global Family Planning Revolution preserves the remarkable record of this success. Its editors and authors offer more than a historical record. They disccuss important lessons for current and future initiatives of the international community. Some programs succeeded while others initially failed, and the analyses provide valuable guidance for emerging health-related policy objectives and responses to global challenges.

The main contents are key findings and messages regarding the relationship between contraceptive use and fertility, for 195 countries or areas of the world. These highlights will draw mainly from World Population Prospects 2019, and model-based estimates and projections of family planning indicators 2019. Policy-related implications of and responses to trends in family planning and fertility will be integrated throughout the text. In particular, these issues are of relevance for contextualizing Sustainable Development Goals 3.7.1. and 3.7.2. and the achievement of the 2030 Agenda.