Bringing Care to Life
Family Planning Series
Our Family Planning Series is designed to help women and their partners choose and use contraceptive methods that fit their own needs, and better train health care providers to improve their care.
Maternal deaths can be reduced by an estimated 30% if contraception is accessible and used correctly by women who do not wish to become pregnant. Recognizing this need for high-quality family planning and reproductive health information, we produced a series of teaching videos for both providers and women and their partners, released in 2021.
The videos cover each contraceptive method along with important reproductive health topics including infection prevention in clinics. There is a set of 40 videos for health workers and a companion set of 23 videos for women and their partners. The videos reflect the most up-to-date international standards of care.
Contraceptives are one of the most powerful tools we have. It puts the power in the hands of young girls and women to plan their families, and quite honestly to plan their futures.
Melinda French Gates
We established key partnerships with Ipas, WHO, and UNFPA for technical review and assistance in securing film locations and skilled health workers. Footage was filmed in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Uganda. We had planned a last shoot in Nepal but that plan was curtailed due to the worldwide Covid lockdown in March 2020. We shot some additional footage in the US and remotely in Nepal.
Acknowledgements
Primary Sources
Family Planning: A Global Handbook for Providers, WHO and JHCCP, 2018
Training Resource Package for Family Planning, USAID, WHO, and UNFPA, 2021
A Book for Midwives, Hesperian Health Guides, 2021
NORMAL Facility-based Counseling Tool for Menstrual Bleeding Changes (job aid), 2019
Content Experts
Karen Hays
Robyn Churchill
Florence West – ICM
Ann Yates – ICM
Alison Edelman – Ipas
Nathalie Kapp – Ipas
Guillermo Ortiz – Ipas
Bill Powell – Ipas
Shadie Tofigh – Ipas
Alemnesh Reta – Laerdal Global Health
Anna af Ugglas – Laerdal Global Health
Sarah Bar-Zeev – UNFPA
Aster Berhe – UNFPA
Elizabeth Kalunga – UNFPA
Stephen Mupeta – UNFPA
Dan Okoro – UNFPA
Anna von Horsten – UNFPA
Elizabeth Clark – WHO
Mekdes Feyssa – WHO
Mary Lyn Gaffield – WHO
James Kiarie – WHO
Antoinette Nguyen – WHO
Jennifer Reeves – WHO
Angeline Ti – WHO
Siri Wood – PATH
Maggie Kilbourne-Brook – PATH
Clinical Sites
BANGLADESH – Dhaka Medical College Hospital
ETHIOPIA – Maraki Health Center, Gondar
UGANDA – Reproductive Health Uganda, Gulu Clinic
USA – Equality Health Center, New Hampshire
NEPAL – Family Planning Association of Nepal – Kathmandu Clinic
Health Worker “Actresses”
Bangladesh – Moriom Akhtar, doctor
Bangladesh – Rejuana Rahman, doctor
Bangladesh – Zulekha Akhter, doctor
Ethiopia – Nejwa Abdulahi, midwife
Ethiopia – Adane “LemLem” Kebede, midwife
Uganda – Rose Vivian Anzoyo, midwife
Uganda – Anicia Filda, midwife
Nepal – Om Maharjan, doctor
Nepal – Babita, nurse
Nepal – Laxmi, nurse
USA – Susan Hollinger, nurse practitioner
Film Team
Deb Van Dyke – producer, director, writer
Mark Binder – videographer
Bishnu Kalpit – videographer
Joseph Brunette – videographer
Patrick Kennedy – videographer
Tony Bacon – editor
Malaika Uwamahoro – presenter
Mesa Schumacher, Janine Van Schoor, and Carmen Ziervogel – animators
Andrew Hagiioannu – music composer
Charlotte Blake Alston – English narrator
Anne Lehericey – French narrator
Maria Alexandra Granja – Spanish narrator
Funding Support
We are grateful to the Laerdal Foundation and Ipas for the generous funding that made the Family Planning Series possible. We’d also like to thank our friends in the Mad River Valley of Vermont—and beyond—for their steady support for our film series.