Attitudes of parents towards family planning

Family planning as programs has been operating in Tanzania for about ten years now. All this time would have indicated great improvement in the attitude change among the Tanzanian parents in adopting the programme. But so far the progress in this direction has been very slow. The objective of this study was to look into the possible reasons that have contributed to such a slow progress and where possible to give some ideas that might help improve the situation. This study was carried on the periphery of Bagamoyo, an old, slow developing historical town on the coast of Tanzania. The study contended that possible contributions as to how the programme could be carried effectively, is only through incorporating the parents’ attitudes into the pragramme, especially in the planning stage, for they are the consumers of the family planning services, hence the implementers of the programme. For this reason they have much to reveal both for and against the programme. This then made the study to be directed to interviewing parents of a selected area on their attitudes towards family planning. The study is divided into six chapters. Chapter one which is the introduction, deals with the family and population growth in perspective. Chapter two deals with the background information on Bagamoyo district, while Chapter three talks on the research Methodology. Chapter four and five deal with the results of the study while the last chapter winds up on the discussions, conclusion and recommendations.