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Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is defined as glucose intolerance that is primarily detected during pregnancy. Objective: To determine the relationship between glycemic control and glycated albumin in women with GDM. Patients and Methods: This prospective study was carried out in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Zagazig University Hospitals, Zagazig, Sharkia, Egypt from December 2018 to October 2019. The study included 30 patients suffering from GDM (study group) as well as another matching 30 women (control group). Maternal screening for all cases at 24-28 wks using a 75-gm oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) which is a fasting blood glucose sample was done. Results: GA levels were significantly higher after 24 weeks of gestation in the GDM group compared with controls. Elevated GA levels had a positive correlation with birth weight. In the present study, fetal weight was significantly higher among the study group (3850.0±513.7) than controls (3396.6±334) (p<0.001). Glycated albumin, HbA1c only showed association with large‐ for‐ date status. Also, GA24_28, more than 13.4 had a sensitivity of 82% and specificity of 72% for GDM. ROC curve, as the cut‐ off point for identifying poor glycemic control in GDM women, and provided the optimal sensitivity (75.93%) and specificity (86.36%). Conclusion: GDM women, the risk of macrosomia significantly increases when the GA levels are ≥14.45% in the third trimester. The results provide strong support for the use of GA measurements, as a complement to finger stick glucose, for assessing short‐ term glycemic control and predicting large birth weight in the GDM women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author discusses the contraceptive security strategies, without long-acting (LA) and permanent methods (PM) of family planning. It analyzes 13 countries and two regions including Albania, Burkina Faso, and Egypt, where recent contraceptive security strategies were written and publicly available. It investigates the problematic language defining contraceptive security.

This article discusses family planning in post-World War II Egypt, focusing on state policy toward birth and population control. Reproduction and contraceptive use are examined within the frameworks of gender and citizenship. The author comments on women's bodies, agency, and choice. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Arab socialism, and Egypt's Muslim religious establishment are explored. Other topics include demographic theory, intrauterine devices (IUDs), and a family planning clinic in the Muharram Bey neighborhood of Alexandria, Egypt, directed by Yusuf Hafiz.

Egypt and Tunisia began their fertility transition at almost identical fertility levels and at roughly the same time period, yet the difference in the pace of decline has been such that the total fertility rate (TFR) in Tunisia reached replacement level by the year 2001, whereas the TFR in Egypt remains above three live births per woman. This article draws on the secondary literature and on several nationally representative surveys from the two countries between 1978 and 2005 to provide empirical evidence of the difference in the pace of fertility decline and to analyze the determinants of the differential. Findings include (a) variation across the two countries in the consistency of fertility decline among the segments of the population leading the transition; (b) that the success of each country's family planning program was influenced by the role of political leaders and the extent of the program's integration within socioeconomic development objectives; (c) that the impact of contraception on TFR decline became an important factor in the mid-1980s; and (d) that the greatest determinant of the discrepancy in the pace of fertility decline is the disparity in age at marriage, which rose more significantly in Tunisia than in Egypt. The latter finding indicates that reaching replacement fertility in Egypt hinges primarily on further declines in marital fertility, resulting from reduction of wanted fertility and from an expansion of family planning program coverage and improved efficiency of service delivery and use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To examine breastfeeding and contraceptive use after the lactational amenorrhea method (LAM) criteria were no longer met.Methods: Two hundred and thirty-three parous Egyptian women with unplanned pregnancies less than 2 years after delivery completed a questionnaire examining breastfeeding practice and contraceptive use.Results: The majority of women (81.5%) with unplanned pregnancies within 2 years of delivery were breastfeeding at conception. Of these women, 36.3% had used a method of contraception other than LAM compared with 60.5% of women who had weaned (P<0.05). Among the breastfeeding women, 61.2% failed to use contraception because they believed breastfeeding would prevent pregnancy.Conclusion: Breastfeeding women with unplanned pregnancies were less likely to have used contraception than women who had weaned, suggesting that prolonged breastfeeding contributes to unmet contraceptive need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This feminist, ethnographic audience study analyzes how different groups of Egyptian rural women struggled to construct and reflect their subjectivities and identities, both as women and mothers, while making meaning of the messages in a televised governmental family planning campaign. The study investigates the complexity of factors which formed and transformed these women's multiple identities, and which were, in turn, reflected in their multiple readings of the televised family planning messages, as well as in their multifaceted resistances on different levels: resistance to the traditional reproduction norms embedded in their own socio-cultural context; resistance to the dominant figures in their own families; and resistance to the dominant family planning ideology proposed by the government. In explaining why and how the women in the Egyptian village of Kafr Masoud came up with dominant, oppositional, or negotiated readings around the themes in the televised family planning messages, the study pays special attention to the impact of the process of social change on the transformation of these women's gendered identities. It also explores the effects of these women's social networks, their household structures, the oral forms of communication in their community, as well as the collective pattern of television viewing in the village on forming these women's views and attitudes towards the issue of family planning, in general, and towards the televised family planning messages, in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Th is article looks at the origins of the family planning program in Egypt as a case study in the history of relations between the emerging community of international donors, state officials, and local actors in the postwar period. Th e paper suggests that Americans and Egyptians were not in polar opposition over family planning. Egyptian women activists, medical specialists, state officials, and American population experts formed alliances that crossed national boundaries and cut at cross purposes to promote their varied agendas. Th e main losers in the scramble to establish family planning in Egypt were those female reformers who had been the first to endorse it and offer contraceptives in their clinics. At stake was control over an important form of aid that affected millions of women, management of a key program in the emerging social welfare state, and a victory in development circles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study draws upon data from the 2004 Slow Fertility Transition survey, a follow-up to the 2003 Egypt Interim Demographic and Health Survey, to investigate obstacles to achieving replacement fertility. To account for the likelihood of embracing the two-child ideal, the analysis adopts a framework with the acronym APA: Acceptance of the two-child ideal, Preference for that ideal, and Achievement of that preference. The framework posits a hierarchy among the three and hypothesizes that each depends on a set of factors, including gender stratification, economic expectations, perception of the costs and benefits of having children, and the costs of fertility regulation. The results indicate that son preference and the perceived low cost of childrearing are major obstacles to the acceptance of the two-child family. Son preference, other discriminatory gender attitudes, optimistic economic expectations, and fear of contraceptive side effects are associated with a low preference for and ambivalence about having only two children. Given a decisive preference, lower socioeconomic status and strong son preference are the major obstacles to the achievement of the two-child ideal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critics of US democracy-promotion strategies of the last 20 years ask: what kind of democracy is promoted by US public agencies and associated nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), how is it promoted, and for what purpose(s)? This paper draws on interviews with NGO, USAID, and UN representatives, gathered in Egypt in 2001, to describe the fate of Egyptian women's advocacy NGOs seeking to implement the pro-democracy platform of action of the 1994 UN International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). It offers some support for critics' contentions both that external (here USAID) pro-democracy interventions may actually obstruct democratization, and that the instrumental nature of US democracy promotion may mean that such activities are quickly eliminated or downgraded when they conflict with more primary US policy goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the results of the Egypt Demographic and Health Survey 2005. The research was conducted by the Egypt Ministry of Health and Population in cooperation with the National Population Council. Various statistics on fertility, contraception, marital status and child delivery are presented.

The increasing use of family planning methods seems to be the intermediate determinant which mostly influences the fertility decline in developing countries, and in particular in those countries which are in an advanced phase of demographic transition such as Egypt. Moreover large countries, like Egypt, are characterized by very different geographical realities and even by strong regional heterogeneities. The aim of this study is the analysis of the determinants of contraceptive use in Egypt, with particular reference to the differentials due to the socio-economic context and to the area of residence. To estimate each individual and regional factors’ effect on contraceptive use, a logistic two-level random intercept model is fitted to EDHS 2000 data; the use of a multilevel analysis is suggested by the two-level data structure: the first level units are the women, the second level units are their regions of residence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Both availability and quality of family planning services are believed to have contributed to increasing contraceptive use and declining fertility rates in developing countries. Yet, there is limited empirical evidence to show the relationship between the quality of family planning services and the population based prevalence of contraceptive methods. This study examined the relationship between quality of family planning services and use of intrauterine devices (IUD) in Egypt. Methods: The analysis used data from the 2003 Egypt Interim Demographic and Health Survey (EIDHS) that included 8,445 married women aged 15-49, and the 2002 Egypt Service Provision Assessment (ESPA) survey that included 602 facilities offering family planning services. The EIDHS collected latitude and longitude coordinates of all sampled clusters, and the ESPA collected these coordinates for all sampled facilities. Using Geographic Information System (GIS) methods, individual women were linked to a facility located within 10 km of their community. A facility-level index was constructed to reflect the quality of family planning services. Four dimensions of quality of care were examined: counseling, examination room, supply of contraceptive methods, and management. Effects of quality of family planning services on the use of IUD and other contraceptive methods were estimated using multinomial logistic regression. Results are presented as relative risk ratios (RRR with significance levels (p-values). Results: IUD use among women who obtained their method from public sources was significantly positively associated with quality of family planning services (RRR = 1.36, p < 0.01), independent of distance to the facility, facility type, age, number of living children, education level, household wealth status, and residence. Quality of services related to counseling and examination room had strong positive effects on use of IUD (RRR = 1.61 for counseling and RRR = 1.46 for examination room). Obtaining IUD from a private source or using other contraceptive methods was not associated with quality of services. Conclusion: This study is one among the few that used geographic information to link data from a population-based survey with an independently sampled health facility survey. The findings demonstrate that service quality is an important determinant of use of clinical contraceptive methods in Egypt. Improving quality of family planning services may help further increase use of clinical contraceptive methods and reduce fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many research studies have documented the relationship between menstrual side effects of contraceptives and discontinuation of use, few have sought to identify factors that predispose women to discontinue because of changes in bleeding patterns. Such in formation is important to enable family planning providers to better help women and couples choose appropriate methods and use them successfully. METHODS: Forty-eight women participating in six focus group discussions described their experiences using the IUD, the hormonal implant or the three-month injectable. Subsequently, 259 women using one of these methods for the first time were followed for up to 18 months to determine patterns of menstrual bleeding and perceptions of menstrual cycle change overtime. Multi variable analytical methods were used to examine the associations between selected measures and method discontinuation. RESULTS: Contraceptive discontinuation differed by method:Nearly 7O% of injectable users had stopped using their chosen method after one year, compared with 34% of IUD users and 10% of implant users. Before initiating a method, women reported an average of five bleeding days per cycle. During the first six months of use,IUD users reported an average of six days of bleeding per cycle; injectable and implant users reported 11-12. In multivariable models, each additional day of bleeding was significantly associated with a 2-4% increase in discontinuation, depending on method type. Among IUD users, women whose husbands knew that they had visited a clinic to initiate a method were less likely than others to discontinue method use (hazard ratio, -1.9). Age was significantly associated with decreased discontinuation among implant users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt. Discussion on the access for reproductive health services; Information on family planning; Details of HIV/AIDS prevention programs.

CONTEXT: Although unmet need for family planning is a standard measure for evaluating programs' effectiveness in meeting the reproductive needs of individuals, its validity and accuracy in identifying women most at risk of unintended pregnancy have been questioned. METHODS: Women who participated in the 1995 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey in two governorates in Upper Egypt (Assuit and Souhag) were followed for two years (N=2,444); in-depth data on their fertility preferences, contraceptive use and births were gathered in 1996 and 1997. Transitions among contraceptive need categories from 1995 to 1997 are examined, and rates of unintended (mistimed and unwanted) births are calculated according to contraceptive need status at baseline. RESULTS: In the aggregate, unmet need increased by six percentage points, from 28% to 34%. This change was the net outcome of 14% moving out of unmet need and 20% moving into unmet need (i.e., substantial satisfaction of unmet need was offset by increased demand for contraception). The rate of unintended fertility was far higher among women with unmet need at baseline than among contraceptive users in 1995. Women with unmet need made up about one-quarter of the baseline sample, but they contributed almost one-half of mistimed and unwanted births during the two years. The majority of unintended births were to women who had never practiced contraception, whereas fewer than one-fifth were to women with recent contraceptive experience (including contraceptive failure). CONCLUSIONS: Unmet need for family planning remains a useful tool for identifying and targeting women at high risk of unintended pregnancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines how the Standard Days Method addresses policy issues in the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt, while responding to the family planning needs of people around the world. Family planning method based on fertility awareness that is being introduced into programs worldwide; Ability of the method to contribute to reproductive health programs in a number of critical ways.

This paper presents a new approach to cost analysis of family planning programmes that focuses on behaviour change of programme clients as the final ‘output’ rather than units of contraceptive services delivered, as does the familiar couple-years-of-protection index. It is useful to know how much it costs to deliver a unit of contraceptive services, but it would also seem useful to know how much it costs to change a prospective client’s behaviour. The proposed approach rests on the familiar ‘steps to behaviour change’ paradigm and: (1) develops a methodology for applying a client-behaviour-change-centred cost analysis to programme activities; (2) tests the methodology and concepts by applying them retrospectively to a case study of mass media interventions in Egypt; (3) derives cost per unit of behaviour changes for these Egyptian communications campaigns to demonstrate the workability of the approach. This framework offers a new approach to impact evaluation that would seem to be applicable to other components of family planning and reproductive health programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After experiencing rapid decline since the 1980s, fertility in Egypt seemed to be stalling during the second half of the 1990s. In an effort to identify the population segment(s) responsible for the stalling, this study considers fertility trends of women from three standard of living strata (low, middle, and high). Using data collected by the 1988, 1992, 1995, and the 2000 Egypt Demographic and Health Surveys, the study indicates that the reproductive behavior of women from high and middle standards households is largely responsible for stalling of the fertility decline during recent years, and that prospects for a lower fertility in the future is limited, once the gap between the three groups closes. This means that the expectation of achieving replacement fertility Egypt within the next 15 to 20 years is in doubt if the current trends in the both actual and desired fertility of the middle and high strata continued. The key for future decline in fertility is the decline in desired number of children below the current level of 3 children by at least one segment of the population. The fact none of the three population segments expressed a desired fertility below 3 children deprived the society of a vanguard group that leads the rest of the society to replacement level fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the arguments against family planning and the opinions of modern Egyptian scholars concerning its permissibility. Arguments and counter-arguments against family planning; Opinions of Egyptian scholar Ahmad al-Sharbasi, Shaykh 'Abd al-Majid Salim, Shaykh Jad aHaqq 'Ali Jad al-Haqq, Shaykh al-Sayyid Sabiq, Shaykh Mahmud Shaltut, Shaykh Muhammad Muhammad al-Madani, 'Abd al-'Aziz Muhammad 'Isa, and 'Atiyyah Saqr.

Researchers surveyed the psychological well-being of 795 women of reproductive age from Menoufiya, Egypt. Five years earlier, these women had provided data relevant to their family planning behavior. This analysis links these data sets to investigate the impact of family planning on women's sense of well-being, within the context of beliefs about appropriate gender-related behaviors. Well-being measures are derived for trait and state dimensions. Use of family planning and number of children born within the preceding 5 years predicted state ratings of happiness, and number of children predicted anxious pride. Neither are related to any of the trait ratings. Further, 3 different gender-role attitudes are vital to the explanation of how women define and feel good about themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the role of family planning programs in Egypt. Reduction in the number of children; Regulation of reproduction; Facilitation on the construction of individuality.

This study examined the relationship between the use of maternal-child health (MCH) care and the use of contraceptives. The high correlation between the two may be due to the independent effect of one on the other or to an association of both with the same or similar background factors. We used structural equation models to examine the relationship between these two interventions. The data were derived from six Demographic and Health Surveys: Zimbabwe from Sub-Saharan Africa, Thailand from Asia, Egypt and Tunisia from North Africa, and Guatemala and Colombia from Latin America. The results show that in all six countries, the use of contraceptives and MCH care are significantly associated, independent of intervening factors; this finding suggests that families develop a joint demand for better-quality health and limited family size and translate these demands into action by using health services for mothers and for children and by voluntarily regulating fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data are used from two surveys of currently married women aged 15-44 conducted in 1979-80 and 1990-91 to explore the changing impact of gender preference on modern contraceptive use and on fertility in rural Menoufia, Egypt. The significantly positive effects on contraceptive use of having one or more sons in 1979 remained constant in 1990. Families without living sons had higher odds of having a birth than did families with two or more sons during 1979-80, and these relative odds were even higher in 1990-91 among families with three or more living children. The implications of these findings for subsequent declines in aggregate fertility are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of a growing cultural and religious sensitivity and controversy over reproductive health issues, particularly abortion, this area remains relatively unexplored in Egypt. This study was conducted using a participatory approach to determine the morbidity and determinants of abortion in rural Upper Egypt. In all, 1025 women from six villages in Upper Egypt were included in the study. Information regarding the incidence of abortion, patterns of health care utilization and risk factors was obtained using a structured interview format. The local dialect was used in formulating questions and they were revised and amended by a panel of local leaders, interviewers and representatives of the study population. Interviewers were local educated (secondary or university level) female volunteers. Information about exposure to 17 risk factors was also collected and statistical analysis was done by estimating the odds ratio and applying a test of statistical significance. Then, a multivariate logistic regression model was applied to control for possible interactions and confounding effects. The results were that 40.6% (n=416) had aborted at least once; of them 24.6% (n=252) had aborted more than once and were designated as recurrent aborters. The lifetime prevalence of recurrent abortion was estimated to be 25% and nearly 21% of pregnancies were aborted. The incidence of abortion was estimated to be 265 per 1000 live birth. Only 21.9% (n=91) of women received medical care for the last abortion. The vast majority of women (92%, n=299) who did not seek medical help received help from traditional and domestic sources. These sources are midwife (59.9%, n=179), relative or neighbour (29.8%, n=89), and traditional practitioner (10.4%, n=31). The multivariate analysis revealed that the incidence of abortion is significantly associated with gravidity, consanguinity, and mother occupation, while recurrent abortion is associated with gravidity, consanguinity and woman’s... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a comparative analysis of changes in family-building patterns in Egypt and Morocco. Adoption of effective family planning programs; Changes in reproductive behavior of married women; Diffentials in the pace of fertility decline.

The article focuses on the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) which was sponsored by the United Nations from September 5-15, 1994 in Cairo, Egypt. The conference designed a plan to control population in the world over the next twenty years. The participants of the conference agreed that women play the most important role in the population development program. The nations decided that women should gain complete control over their reproduction to control the population.

This note explores the influence that state policies have had on the decline of the birth rate in Egypt during the second half of the twentieth century. The three successive political regimes over this period have pursued similar policies seeking to extend the practice of birth control. Despite this continuity in population policy, the birth rate has exhibited several shifts, alternatively downward and upward, indicating the influence of other factors. The erratic variations of the birth rate, in the short term, appear to parallel the resources available to households, which in turn change in relation to public policies affecting the distribution of income and, more recently, the increasing dominance of market processes in the economy. On the other hand, the long-term trend toward a decrease in the birth rate is paralleled by an increase in the average level of education among women, which for its part results from state policies extending schooling to girls. These results suggest that the analysis of population policies should not be isolated from the global political economy that forms the context of the fertility transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data on the last closed and open birth intervals have been used to ascertain the current potential of childbearing for women in terms of estimating fecundity and secondary sterility by age, residence, and educational subgroup. Under the assumption that after a specific period from the last birth a certain proportion of women become secondarily sterile, we propose and apply an inflated model of open birth interval to obtain the proportion of women who are secondarily sterile. The data used for the analysis are extracted from the Egyptian Fertility Survey conducted in 1980. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the approach to family planning in Egypt. The concern over population growth is not new, nor have the parameters of the debate about its potential consequences changed very much during the last 200 years. When representatives of 174 nations and hundreds of nongovernmental organizations descended on Cairo in early September of 1994 for the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, it marked the third time in as many decades that such a gathering occurred. Many regard 1953 as the beginning of government intervention in Egyptian population growth when the Minister of Social Affairs submitted a report on population to the Presidential Council. Subsequently, the National Committee on Population Affairs was formed along with several subcommittees, all of which proposed policies that encouraged an increase in births. At least initially, an increase in population was considered a major asset in both maintaining and enhancing Egypt's political position in the region.

Addresses some of the most frequently raised questions about the relationship between gender inequality and reproductive behavior in Egypt. Theoretical and policy implications of relationship between women's position and fertility control; Findings from binomial and multinomial logit models; Preferences about family planning decisionmaking.

Analyzes the results of an operations research project carried out at two sites in Egypt to improve the medical care and counseling of postabortion patients. Increase in the provision of family planning information to postabortion patients as a result of the project's training program; Resultant increase in the number of patients intending to use a contraceptive method.

The article presents a case study which describes the two staged approach to pretesting family planning advertisements used by the Egyptian contraceptive social marketing program, Family of the Future. In the case study, researchers have found a two staged approach to pretesting advertisements for Amaan spermicidal foaming tablets, used by the Egyptian Contraceptive Social Marketing program, Family of the Future. According to many researchers, television advertising messages are being used with increasing frequency to support the use of family planning products distributed by contraceptive social marketing programs.

The adoption of an integrated family planning-maternal and child health care strategy in a cultural context non-supportive of family planning invites a shift in emphasis in which the means, MCH services, rather than the achievement of the goals, fertility reduction, become the focus of activities. This paper presents a case of such an occurrence of goal displacement. We conclude that without a carefully considered response which addresses the general cultural and organizational influences of integrated family planning/MCH programs in reducing fertility rates will be limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous rural surveys analyzing the impact of the Egyptian Population and Development Program on KAP variables (knowledge, attitudes, and practices of contraception) have produced mixed results. In 1982 a survey specifically designed to measure program impact contained refinements in questionnaire measurement, sampling, and analysis. Each refinement intensified the apparent program impact. Fertility itself still appears unresponsive, and attitudes toward family size have changed little, but marked differences between program and nonprogram areas in contraceptive knowledge, attitudes, and practice suggest imminent fertility declines in program areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this article is to discover whether there is a significant change in the Egyptian family size in the United States in comparison with that in Egypt and to compare the family size of the present adult generation with that of their parents and grandparents irrespective of location. According to the author, this is the first demographic study on Egyptian immigrants in the United States, and is exploratory in nature. Although many studies have been done by Egyptian and foreign demographers on the Egyptian family in Egypt, none dealt with Egyptian families in the United States. A difference was found to exist between the groups based on educational level completed by the husband and the wife. Another difference was found between the planned family sizes of the respondent, the family he comes from, and the family his father comes from. This reflects the changes in the Egyptian family as a result of the industrialization trend and consequent urbanization in Egypt and the contact with a western culture in the United States.

This article discusses the influential factors in the acceptance of birth control and the consequential approaches to family planning by focusing on the classic example of Egypt. The majority of Moslem authorities have declared the use of contraceptives lawful. All four orthodox schools of Islamic law have allowed the use of coitus interruptus, and more recently there have been other official pronouncements allowing birth control for health purposes only and setting the consent of the wife as a prerequisite. Most of the authorities seem to oppose sterilization and the Egyptian "fatwa" (respected Moslem authority) has declared that abortion is permissible only if the mother's health is endangered. The fatwa emphasizes that the purpose of marriage is procreation, but believes that man should be able to provide adequately for his children. The Egyptian peasants, however, are much less concerned with what the Moslem authorities state on the subject of birth control, since the official Moslem opinion does not crucially affect their lives. What is more important is their basic orientation and view of the world.

The article presents a brief review of conditions and difficulties associated with rapidly growing population in the United Arab Republic (UAR), former name for Egypt, and discusses the progress and problems of family planning. Many of the complications that make the institution of family planning in the UAR imperative arise because Egypt has an agricultural economy. An acre of cultivable land was allotted to feed two persons 60 years ago (0.48 acre per capita), while it now must feed 4.5 persons (0.23 acre per capita). In this way, 70 percent of landowners now have less than one acre, and because Egyptians depend on cereals for 75 percent of their calories, the demand made upon the land becomes increasingly intense. Lack of land and a rapidly growing population place demands, too, on importations. Organized effort began in the private sector and gradually won the support of the government. The first organized effort began in 1953 with the formation of the National Committee for Population, which was registered with the Ministry of Social Affairs as the Society for Population in 1958.

Abstract: Reproductive rights continue to be under threat, even some 15 years after the landmark International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo declared the importance of a satisfying and safe sex life, the capability to have children, and the right to decide on the timing, number, and spacing. The right to choose whether and when to have children is at risk both from some who seek to increase birth rates through pronatalist policies and from some who seek a return to “population control” as a response to global climate change, environmental degradation, endemic poverty, global recession, and food shortages. This paper argues the success of the rights-based approach to family planning, reproductive health and health education, and outlines issues and policy responses related to low fertility. This is contrasted with the unmet need for family planning in the poorest countries. It calls for health providers to advocate for reproductive rights, affirming that the freedom of women to control their fertility is the basis for other essential freedoms. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Objectives: Female genital mutilation (FGM) includes procedures that remove partial or total external female genitalia, or causes other injury to female genital organs with no medical reason. Physical and psychological trauma associated with FGM may interfere with a woman's ability and intent to utilize contraception. Our study examines the association between FGM and utilization of contraception methods among sexually active reproductive-aged women in Egypt., Methods: Data from the 2014 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey were analyzed (n = 20,055). Multinomial logistic regression was used to obtain odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals., Results: Our study found that FGM was performed on over 90% of Egyptian women and almost half (45%) of women did not use contraception. Women with FGM had significantly lower odds (OR = 0.6) of using barrier/natural contraceptive methods (e.g., condoms) than intrauterine devices (IUDs). However, women with FGM were more likely to use hormonal methods (OR = 1.2) than IUDs compared to those who had not experienced FGM., Conclusions: In order to promote women's health and support use of effective contraception methods, a large reduction in FGM practice is essential.

Reports the involvement of discussing sexuality during family planning consultations in Egypt. Training of health providers on sexuality and counselling skills; Establishment of system of referral to university hospitals for complex sexual problems; Encouragement of people to ask questions on sexuality.

Presents a historical perspective on contraception. Recipe for Contraceptive Fudge used in the late 1800s; Substances used as contraception in Egypt in 1850 B.C.; Efficacy of controlling orgasm as a contraceptive technique; Implementation of intrauterine device.

Discusses the articles published in the December 2003 issue of the "International Family Planning Perspectives" journal which report on situations in which conventional wisdom or conventional approaches to analysis needed to be reexamined. "Unmet Need and Unintended Fertility: Longitudinal Evidence From Upper Egypt," by John Casterline and colleagues; "The Psychosocial Context of Young Adult Sexual Behavior in Nicaragua: Looking Through the Gender Lens," by Manju Rani and colleagues.