Throughout the developing world, millions of mothers and their children die each year due to complications from births that are too close together or too early or too late in a woman's life.
Family planning can prevent a quarter of infant deaths by spacing births at least two years apart.
Family planning can also prevent at least one in four maternal deaths by allowing women to delay motherhood and avoid unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. These global problems know no boundaries and affect people everywhere, including the United States. Expanding populations also undermine developing country efforts to provide citizens with adequate health care, food, education, and jobs. And chances increase that people will migrate to the United States in search of employment and a better life. Though the rate of population growth is slowing, the world's population, now at 5.9 billion, still adds another 80 million to the planet every year.