Family Planning

Ndola Prata's undergraduate student exceptional communications!

December 5, 2024

Victoria Lee, Drexler Anthony T. Madamba, Kendy Mendoza, and Hazel Warner, undergraduate students from Ndola Prata's PH181 course, Poverty and Population, have been in touch with Congressional Representatives in Washington DC, Journalist Alisha Haridasani Gupta (New York Times) and Governor Inslee (Washington). Click here to read the students' exceptional work!

Karen Weidert will present a top poster at the Society of Family Planning annual meeting on December 3rd

November 29, 2022

The poster highlights our work using telemedicine to increase access to 1st trimester abortion in Rwanda.

Please click here for the poster.

Reaching the hard to reach

Martha Campbell
Malcolm Potts
Pouru Bhiwandi
1994

PIP: The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development proposed increasing contraceptive couple protection from 550 million in 1995 to 880 million in 2015. The task for family planning (FP) programs is to provide access to services for, sometimes, inaccessible rural populations. FP need based on desire for no more children has ranged from under 20% in Senegal to almost 80% in Peru. Socioeconomic development was found not to be a prerequisite for fertility change. Gender inequalities in education and social autonomy must be changed. FP access is very important among women with...

The fifth freedom revisited: II, The way forward

Malcolm Potts
Allan Rosenfield
1990

PIP: The goal of doubling the number of contraceptive acceptors in the world during the 1990s is achievable if family planning services are made universally accessible and a continuous supply of contraceptives is maintained. With serious attention to the elimination of unwanted pregnancies, the world’s population could stabilize at under 8 billion; without it, the global population will approach 15 billion before stabilization. To counteract the impact of a 30% increase in the numbers of women of fertile age in developing countries during the 1990s, 130 million new contraceptive acceptors...

The fifth freedom revisited: I, Background and existing programmes

Malcolm Potts
1990

In the 25 years since the late Sir Dugald Baird expounded his ideas on a fifth freedom –freedom from the tyranny of excessive fertility-what has happened to family planning services worldwide? Dr Potts and Professor Rosenfield review the policies that have been adopted and suggest realistic strategies for the future.

Published in Lancet, 11 17 1990, 336(8725)

Download PDF, click here.

Religion, family planning, and abortion

Malcolm Potts
1993

Letter to the Lancet

Published in Lancet, 9 25 1993, 342(8874):808

Download PDF, click here.

Letter: Funding international family planning

Malcolm Potts
John Guillebaud
1994

Published in British Medical Journal, 2 26 1994, 308(6928):599

Download PDF, click here.

Should oral contraceptives be available without prescription?

James Trussell
Felicia Stewart
Malcolm Potts
Felicia Guest
Charlotte Ellertson
1993

In this paper, it is argued that oral contraceptives should be available without prescription. Prescription status entails heavy costs, including the dollar, time, and psychological costs of visiting a physician to obtain a prescription, the financial and human costs of unintended pregnancies that result from the obstacle to access caused by medicalization of oral contraceptives, and administrative costs to the health care system. After a review and evaluation of the reasons for strict medical control of oral contraceptives in the United States, safety concerns anticipated in response to...

The impact of maternal health improvement on perinatal survival: cost-effective alternatives

Julia Walsh
A Measham
C Feifer C
Paul Gertler
1994

Each year, an estimated half million women die from complications related to child birth either during pregnancy, delivery or within 42 days afterwards. When pregnant women have complications, their infants are at greater risk of becoming ill, permanently disabled or dying. For every maternal death, there are at least 20 infant deaths: stillbirths, neonatal or postneonatal deaths. Altogether, an estimated 7 million infants each year die perinatally (stillborn or deaths within the first week of life). Low cost, feasible, and effective intervention strategies include: a) improved family...

Safety implications of transferring the oral contraceptive from prescription-only to over-the-counter status

Malcolm Potts
Colleen Denny
1995

The idea of making oral contraceptives available without prescription has a long history, and has been recently revived in the US and the UK. High dose oral contraceptives have generally been replaced by low dose formulations and, subsequently, most cardiovascular risks have been reduced and a protection against ovarian and uterine cancers has been consistently demonstrated. Oral contraceptive compliance, however, continues to be a problem, but there is no reason to assume that wise practice would be any more or less if oral contraceptives were available over-the-counter (OTC). Some...