Providing Quality Family Planning Services: Recommendations of CDC and the U.S. Office of Population Affairs

Recommendations and Reports

April 25, 2014 / 63(RR04);1-29

Prepared by

Loretta Gavin, PhD,1 Susan Moskosky, MS,2 Marion Carter, PhD,1 Kathryn Curtis, PhD,1 Evelyn Glass, MSPH,2 Emily Godfrey, MD,1Arik Marcell, MD,3 Nancy Mautone-Smith, MSW,2 Karen Pazol, PhD,1 Naomi Tepper, MD,1 Lauren Zapata, PhD1

1Division of Reproductive Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC

2Office of Population Affairs, US Department of Health and Human Services, Rockville, Maryland

3The Johns Hopkins University and the Male Training Center for Family Planning and Reproductive Health, Baltimore, Maryland

Corresponding preparers: Loretta Gavin, PhD, Division of Reproductive Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC. Telephone: 770-488-6284; E-mail: lcg6@cdc.gov; Susan Moskosky, MS, Office of Population Affairs, US Department of Health and Human Services. Telephone: 240-453-2818; E-mail: susan.moskosky@hhs.gov.

Summary

This report provides recommendations developed collaboratively by CDC and the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The recommendations outline how to provide quality family planning services, which include contraceptive services, pregnancy testing and counseling, helping clients achieve pregnancy, basic infertility services, preconception health services, and sexually transmitted disease services. The primary audience for this report is all current or potential providers of family planning services, including those working in service sites that are dedicated to family planning service delivery as well as private and public providers of more comprehensive primary care.

The United States continues to face substantial challenges to improving the reproductive health of the U.S. population. Nearly one half of all pregnancies are unintended, with more than 700,000 adolescents aged 15–19 years becoming pregnant each year and more than 300,000 giving birth. One of eight pregnancies in the United States results in preterm birth, and infant mortality rates remain high compared with those of other developed countries.

This report can assist primary care providers in offering family planning services that will help women, men, and couples achieve their desired number and spacing of children and increase the likelihood that those children are born healthy. The report provides recommendations for how to help prevent and achieve pregnancy, emphasizes offering a full range of contraceptive methods for persons seeking to prevent pregnancy, highlights the special needs of adolescent clients, and encourages the use of the family planning visit to provide selected preventive health services for women, in accordance with the recommendations for women issued by the Institute of Medicine and adopted by HHS.