Oral contraceptives. Introduced in 1960, "the Pill" has played an instrumental role in family planning for nearly fifty years, preventing countless pregnancies and helping to control the timing of others in large numbers; by some estimates, eight out of ten women in the United States use it at some point in their lives.

Family planning is often used as a euphemism for birth control, though its connotations are somewhat different. It is most usually applied to the circumstance of a monogamous heterosexual couple who wish to limit their number of children, to control the timing of pregnancy (also known as spacing children), or both. Inherent in the idea is that the couple does have at least one child, that is, they use birth control to plan, not to prevent, a family. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1552x1164, 319 KB) Summary Picture Of Ortho Tri-Cyclen oral contraceptives with Ortho Dialpak dispensers (photo taken by self) I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1552x1164, 319 KB) Summary Picture Of Ortho Tri-Cyclen oral contraceptives with Ortho Dialpak dispensers (photo taken by self) I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ... Birth control is a regimen of one or more actions, devices, or medications followed in order to deliberately prevent or reduce the likelihood of a woman giving birth or becoming pregnant. ... For a broader view of pregnancy in mammals see mammalian pregnancy. ...

Family planning may include more or less permanent abstinence, or the marginally effective withdrawal method, or methods of sexual satisfaction other than genital intercourse, More commonly, however, it is considered to be a system that allows a couple to heve sexual intercourse on a long-term, regular basis, during which the man normally reaches orgasm and ejaculation in the woman's vagina, while nevertheless sharply and reliably reducing the chance that she will become pregnant until such time as the couple wish. Family planning thus often incorporates methods of birth control that either prevent fertilization or work after fertilization to prevent the implantation of an embryo. The essence of family planning, then, is to make intercourse purely a means of expressing love, building stability in the relationship, and sharing physical pleasure, and not a means of reproducing (except at particular, chosen times.) Abstinence is a voluntary forbearance from indulging a desire or appetite for certain bodily activities that are widely experienced as giving pleasure. ... Withdrawal refers to the characteristic signs and symptoms that appear when a drug that causes a physical dependency is regularly used for a long time and then suddenly discontinued or decreased in dosage. ... Coition of a Hemisected Man and Woman (c. ... Categories: Biology stubs ... Embryos (and one tadpole) of the wrinkled frog (Rana rugosa). ...

See Also

Birth Control Birth control is a regimen of one or more actions, devices, or medications followed in order to deliberately prevent or reduce the likelihood of a woman giving birth or becoming pregnant. ...