Self Health Pages

How to be responsible parents and to decide the family size you can live with?

The figure of neglected children all over the world is indeed increasing. Responsible parenthood is ignored and taken for granted, and what is alarming about this is most couples that have the most number of children are suffering from the clutches of poverty. Is contraception offered by artificial and natural planning method the solution to end the woes about having many children? Is it right to plan the size of one’s family?
World Health Organization reports that about 50 percent of pregnancies worldwide are unplanned and unplanned. In other words the budget will spread thin further as a parent will attempt to work doubly hard to make both ends meet, to provide the clothing, milk and other necessities of would be children for the nth time.
Many tried to keep away from pregnancy, since health, housing, or work problems are already inflicting some difficulties as they rely instead contraceptive methods, such as birth-control pills or condoms to stave-off any unplanned pregnancy. The merciless abortions as well as sterilization are also utilized as birth control methods. The newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo of Brazil states that: “The World Health Organization estimates that annually 5 million of the 13 million women who get pregnant in Brazil interrupt the pregnancy clandestinely.” Moreover, Time magazine stated that 71 percent of Brazilian women are capable of bearing a child and lives with a partner apply birth control methods to prevent pregnancy. Of these Brazilian women, 41 percent relies on taking birth pills and 44 percent were sterilized.
There is long standing debate about Family Planning. Who should make a decision about the size of the family, is it the couple themselves or national norms or of religious interests? In China there is the so-called One-Child Policy that is performed and observed, in some Third World and Developing Countries couples are given freedom to bear as many children as they could which is backed by religious beliefs, although national government provides information about family planning and even promotes different forms of contraceptives to avoid unplanned and unwanted pregnancy.
The Roman Catholic Church without qualms permits natural forms of planning method like the Rhythm Method, largest religion in Brazil and even the Philippines, is against the proliferation and usage contraceptive methods, whether they can be abortive or not. Pope Paul VI stated that: “Every conjugal act [has] to be open to the transmission of life.” Pope John Paul II further added: “Contraception, judged objectively, is so profoundly illicit that it can never, for any reason, be justified.” The outcome is Catholics hesitate to control the size of their family, bearing in mind that contraception is form sinning.
Then again, the medical journal Lancet asserts that: “Millions will spend their lives uneducated, unemployed, ill-housed and without access to the most elementary health, welfare and sanitary services, and unchecked population increase is a major causal factor.” Out of fear of experiencing overpopulation and neediness, certain governments worldwide would egg on family planning, in spite of objections of the church. For instance, “Costa Rica reduced the average number of children [per family] from 7 to 3,” states biologist Paul Ehrlich.
According to UN publication Facts for Life—A Communication Challenge: “After a woman has had four children, further pregnancies bring greater risks to the life and health of both mother and child. Especially if the previous births have not been spaced more than two years apart, a woman’s body can easily become exhausted by repeated pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and looking after small children.”
Large families are still widespread where infant death is high, chiefly in rural areas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Many are not accustomed with using the different contraceptive methods. The culprit could be a man’s perception about having his wife pregnant as one legislator believed, “a man still considers himself a real man only if his wife gets pregnant every year.” Another factor could be from the woman’s point of view: “The children are one of their rare sources of pleasure and bring a sense of personal accomplishment.”
Interestingly, the New Catholic Encyclopedia states: “Except for birth control, which they leave to the couple’s own decision, their conjugal and sexual morality is quite rigid.” It adds: “They regard the Bible as their only source of belief and rule of conduct.”
Responsible parenthood should be observed to make most out of the available resources of each household to cope up what life’s necessities. Additional kids are proportional to more expenses, when purchasing a car or perhaps a house and careful planning is carried out, same through with pregnancy wherein thorough planning should be dished out to meet the demands of adding a child to the family, besides having a new kid is not a joke and not returnable. Moreover, to be genuine loving parents, proper education should be given to their kids and would be child, ability to provide adequate food, shelter and clothing to the family should be a top priorities as well as inculcating kids some necessary skills, moral values and love. Time, effort and work should also be part of the equilibrium in making decisions in having a family size to live with. The price of being a good parents is indeed very valuable, the happiness we could get from our children cannot be measured, whilst, and cannot be bought