Adjusting birth rate to improve population quality

Staff of Muong Bon Commune Health Station, Mai Son District, promote population policy to women.

The Provincial People's Committee issued Plan No. 196/KH-UBND dated October 6, 2020 on implementing the Program to adjust birth rates to suit regions and subjects by 2030. Assign the Department of Health and the Provincial Population Office to coordinate with relevant departments, branches and sectors to implement activities to reduce birth rates. Propagating the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's policies and laws on population; supporting poor ethnic minority women to give birth in accordance with population policies; training, coaching and capacity building for population officials at all levels. At the same time, expanding access to reproductive health - family planning (RH-FP) services, supporting contraceptives in high birth rate areas; organizing a communication campaign to mobilize the provision of RH/FP care services in 100 densely populated communes with high birth rates and disadvantaged communes of the province.

In the period of 2020-2024, the Health sector presided over and coordinated with departments, branches, and socio -political organizations to organize a writing contest to learn about knowledge and laws on gender, gender equality, and control of gender imbalance at birth, attracting 20,936 participants; organized 2 launching ceremonies of the integrated communication campaign to provide family planning services in Muong Leo commune, Sop Cop district and Hua Pang commune, Moc Chau town, with 460 participants; Distributed 4,500 copies of the Population - Reproductive Health/Family Planning newsletter, 100 thin books, 115,900 leaflets, 75 tapes, cassettes, and propaganda videos on the Population Ordinance... Supported more than 1,570 poor ethnic minority women to give birth according to policy and rewarded collectives and individuals who performed well in population work, including support to reduce birth rates, with a total cost of more than 3.2 billion VND.

In addition, the province established and maintained clubs and pilot models on population work, reproductive health/family planning, such as: "No third or more children", "Young family", "Raising healthy children, teaching good children", "Reducing early marriage and incestuous marriage"; "Pre-marital health counseling", "Typical girlfriend", "Connecting mothers and daughters"... attracting over 25,000 participants.

As a locality with a high birth rate in the province, Muong La district has made efforts to adjust the birth rate, proactively manage pregnancy and ensure safety for pregnant women. From April 2024 to present, the District Health Center has examined and provided mobile reproductive health consultation in 6 communes: Nam Gion, Chieng Cong, Nam Pam, Ngoc Chien, Chieng An and Chieng Lao. At the places visited, doctors and nurses examined and advised women of childbearing age on contraceptive methods, and provided free contraceptives.

Thanks to the participation of all levels, sectors and localities, up to now, 100% of communes, wards and towns have been covered by the network of reproductive health care/family planning services. The proportion of women of reproductive age (aged 15-49) provided with modern contraceptive methods reached 67.6%; the crude birth rate decreased from 17.43‰ in 2018 to 12.5‰ in 2024; the total fertility rate decreased from 2.36 children/woman in 2021 to 2.2 children/woman in 2024, the population growth rate was basically controlled.

However, the province's population still increases by an average of 15,000 - 19,000 people/year. A large number of people still believe that having a son is to "continue the family line", so in recent years, the birth rate of the third child or more has increased steadily in most localities, greatly affecting the implementation of the goal of reducing births in order to soon reach the replacement birth rate and improve population quality...

Striving to achieve the replacement fertility rate (2.1 children/woman) by 2030, all levels, sectors and localities in the province continue to innovate and improve the effectiveness of communication and propaganda activities, include some population indicators in socio -economic development indicators; attach the implementation of population and development policies to the criteria for assessing the level of task completion and considering the promotion and appointment of officials; deploy projects, models and activities to implement family planning, aiming to change population - reproductive health behaviors, ensuring the sustainability of population and development work in the current period.