Planned, desired childbearing can support parents, children, families, and societies to thrive. Research on human flourishing has demonstrated that reproduction and childbearing are core inflection points through which bonding forms, character develops, and meaning and purpose is cultivated–with lifelong effects. 

In low and middle income countries, almost a third of women begin childbearing between the ages of 10 and 19, and unintended pregnancies make up a half of all pregnancies globally. In contrast to the positive effects of planned pregnancies, unintended and mistimed pregnancies can pose devastating risks to mother and child, as well as to the families and communities in which they live.

Today, a majority of voluntary family planning (VFP) programs are designed and managed primarily to mitigate this potential harm, rather than fostering the conditions and capacities necessary to support parents, children, families, and communities to thrive, such as self-efficacy, agency, autonomy, resilience, hopefulness, and positive relationships.

A project at UC Davis, led by Dr. Ahna Ballonoff Suleiman, executive director of the the university's Center for Regional Change (CRC) and global health consultant Claire Cole, seeks to develop a comprehensive framework that integrates the hitherto siloed understandings of human flourishing science, VFP, and sexual and reproductive health and rights into dialogue.

To achieve this, the project will synthesize existing global evidence, and incorporate participatory processes, such as workshops and panels, that ground global findings in the lived experiences of women and couples. Participatory research will be held in three distinct global geographies – in anglophone West Africa through work in southern Nigeria; in Eastern Africa through work in Uganda; and in North America through work with the Patwin First Nations community based in Yolo County, California.

The project aims to benefit not only global health and development practitioners and decision-makers, but also the women and couples who rely on VFP programming to help them realize their aspirations for their reproductive lives.