Health FAMILY PLANNING IS ALSO FOR MEN Most family-planning methods and services focus primarily on women. Pregnancy and its prevention do most directly affect women, as well as any children they might conceive. This does not mean that family planning is exclusively a women's issue. It is the right and responsibility of men. It takes two to either prevent or seek a pregnancy. Male Involvement” has long been a buzz-word (or “buzz-term”) in family planning circles. Often it is paired with the word “increasing,” that is, assuming that male involvement in family planning – either by encouraging their wives or partners to use contraception, paying for the methods, or even assuming responsibility themselves – is deficient if not non-existent. The question is why so many men refuse or are unable to get involved in family planning, either in decision-making or enabling their partners to use contraception. As for using condoms or undergoing a vasectomy, or cooperating with their partners on natural family planning – well, let’s just say hope springs eternal. Some answers, though, were forthcoming during the Second International Conference on Family Planning, held late last month in Dakar, Senegal. At a workshop on “Men Behind Family Planning,” a speaker from Nigeria explained that while men have “high awareness” of the need for and importance of family planning, they have “poor knowledge” of the various modern methods of family planning and how these work. The speaker, who assisted in a project on working with men in Nigerian villages, also found the men “unwilling to use family planning” mainly because they were apprehensive and insecure, and didn’t know how exactly they fit in the scenario.

Health FAMILY PLANNING IS ALSO FOR MEN Encouraging Male Partnership Globally, increasing numbers of men aspire to be genuine, nonviolent partners with women in childrearing and in decisions about sex and family planning. More family planning workers now counsel men to communicate openly about reproductive health with their partners and back women's contraceptive choices. Researchers are investigating new male contraceptives. In the meantime, more family-planning providers promote available male methods, namely vasectomy and the male condom Dual Protection Dual protection means prevention of both pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases at the same time. One example is abstinence by both partners, whether they refrain from all sex or only from penis-vagina sex. Another example is mutual monogamy with use of a single, effective contraceptive method. In many situations, the most effective dual protection is use of condoms plus hormonal contraceptives such as "the pill," or for those who have completed their families, condoms plus male or female sterilization Other Ways to Partnership No matter what the method or methods, men and women can become partners in family planning. Men can accompany women to health appointments and help them obtain and properly use family-planning supplies. For example, if a woman is on the pill and has difficulty remembering when to take it, her partner could agree to remind her. Men and women can jointly decide if and when to seek conception. Though only women can carry and nurse babies, men can find many ways to share the pleasures and responsibilities of children, starting in pregnancy.