Changes improve efficiency of family planning services（2）

A woman collects medication prescribed after a free checkup as part of a "Healthy Mother" program launched by Langao county in Shaanxi province. [Photo/Xinhua]

Promoting contraception

Qin said some couples want to have more than two babies in violation of the law, so the district's family planning officers have maintained some of their traditional duties, such as promoting awareness of contraception, distributing free contraceptive pills and devices, and fining people who break the law.

Lu Shiyuan has been engaged in family planning in two villages in Dongfeng, the township under the jurisdiction of Wudang, since 2003. He has seen a lot of changes during the past 14 years.

"Unlike our current role as service providers, back in 2003, we were like the residents' managers and our priority was to prevent illegal births," he said. "At the time, villagers who planned to have a child had to go through a number of registration procedures with the local government."

For Lu, the changes really gained momentum in 2014, when the national family planning policy was relaxed. The new regulations allowed couples to have a second child if one partner was the only child in their family. In response, local governments simplified the registration procedures to adapt to the change, including making it easier for people to register via computers or smartphones, he said.

Lu and his colleagues have relocated from their old office to the health center in Dongfeng so they can better assist the doctors and nurses and provide health management for women who are pregnant, have recently given birth, or are planning to have a baby, he added.