To support sexual and reproductive health throughout the life cycle, services across a variety of sectors must be strengthened, from health, including the health workforce, to education systems to even transport systems, which are required to ensure health care is accessible. UNFPA supports programmes tailored to what people face at different times in their lives, including comprehensive sexuality education, family planning, pre-conception care, antenatal and safe delivery care, post-natal care, services to prevent sexually transmitted infections (including HIV), and services facilitating preventive screening, early diagnosis and treatment of reproductive health illnesses including breast and cervical cancer. Evidence shows that reproductive health in any of these life stages has a profound effect on one's health later in life. Sexual and reproductive health is a lifetime concern for both women and men, from infancy to old age. STIs like human papillomavirus (HPV) can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility and cervical cancer, a major killer of women. STIs can also cause pregnancy-related complications, including stillbirth, congenital infections, sepsis and neonatal death. Without diagnosis and treatment, some STIs, such as HIV or syphilis, can be fatal. More than a million people acquire an STI every single day. UNFPA also works to prevent and address STIs, which take an enormous toll around the world. Adolescent sexual and reproductive health is therefore another important focus of UNFPA’s work. Young people are disproportionately affected by HIV, for example, and every year millions of girls face unintended pregnancies, exposing them to risks during childbirth or unsafe abortions and interfering with their ability to go to school. Young people are also extremely vulnerable, often facing barriers to sexual and reproductive health information and care. Impoverished women suffer disproportionately from unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortion, maternal death and disability, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), gender-based violence, and other problems related to pregnancy and childbirth. This is seen most acutely in developing countries, where sexual and reproductive health problems are a leading cause of ill health and death for women and girls of childbearing age. People queue outside a reproductive health clinic in Viet Nam. ©UNFPA/Doan Bau Chau UNFPA, together with a wide range of partners, works toward the goal of universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, including family planning. Every individual has the right to make their own choices about their sexual and reproductive health. And when they decide to have children, women must have access to skilled health care providers and services that can help them have a fit pregnancy, safe birth and healthy baby. They must be informed and empowered to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections. To maintain one’s sexual and reproductive health, people need access to accurate information and the safe, effective, affordable and acceptable contraception method of their choice. It implies that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life, the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when, and how often to do so. Good sexual and reproductive health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being in all matters relating to the reproductive system.
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