In India, nurses at all levels of the organization can play a vital role in the national family planning program. Family planning is an integral component of family well-being, and controlling population growth is crucial to the country's economic and social development. The objectives of the family planning program are to promote the small family ideal, to disseminate information about family planning, and to ensure that contraceptive supplies and services are available to all couples. Administrative nurses at the national level may
1) promote appropriate policies and influence budget allocations,
2) preparation of family planning guidelines for state nurses, and
3) ensure that all upper-level nurses receive education in the family planning service.
Training facility administrators can ensure that an effective and up-to-date family planning component is part of all nurse training programs and that students receive clinical experience in family planning. In hospitals, nursing superintendents can develop family planning seminars and discussion sessions for nursing staff and provide incentives for nurses to motivate couples toward family planning. Nurses working in paediatric and gynaecological wards are ideally positioned to alert mothers to the health problems associated with repeated and very spaced pregnancies. They can arrange to show family planning movies to mothers, display posters in hall corridors, and organize family planning discussion groups among patients. Nurses working in prenatal and postpartum clinics can inform mothers, as well as the factors that frequently accompany their wives to clinics, about the advantages of family planning. School nurses can familiarise students with the advantages of small family size. Children can sometimes motivate their parents to limit the size of the family. In general, community health nurses play an important role in the dissemination of contraceptive information and the provision of contraceptive services. Many community nurses are involved in the Integrated Program for Child Development, a program to improve the health and well-being of the poorest segments of the rural population, and family planning is an important component of the program. Community nurses living in the communities where they work can organize community activities in support of family planning.