When one hears the term” family planning” images of contraceptive devices usually come into mind since the term has been synonymous with birth control. While this is partly true, there are a lot of topics under family planning that matters to health professionals and policy-makers around the world. From the term itself, family planning is simply planning on the number of children one wants to have in a family. The process of planning may also indicate the number of years spaced between birth of children since this factor affects maternal health. Family planning is often undertaken by couples who believe that the number of children in a family is highly related with quality of life. However, there are also other issues in family planning such as pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, infertility, sexuality education and conception. Such issues have great effect on a country especially those that have high birth-rates. Many densely-populated countries like India, China, Brazil and Philippines are controlling their population since it has effect on the economy especially if the resources are limited. Also, family planning is a holistic approach towards the development of all members of the family but is often limited to the partners as practiced by many family planning counselors.

Studies in family planning also include promoting sexual education to young people who are at risk for unwanted pregnancy. Some countries integrate sex education curriculum modules into classes so learners would be exposed to the basic facts about sexual reproduction. However, there are countries that prohibit such due to strong influence of religious institutions. Aside from sexual counseling , family planning studies also focus on maternal health. Mothers are at risk of infection and pregnancy complications when are undernourished and neglected during pregnancy. Family planning studies have been supported by grants coming from NGOs, universities, foundations, private businesses and large global organizations such as WHO and United Nations. The main purpose of funding studies in family planning is to encourage researchers to publish studies that would address issues in reproductive health, maternal mortality, sexual education, infertility and current methods of family planning.