In North Kivu, a province that has been in conflict for the past twenty years, having children can be just as dangerous as being hit by a stray bullet. Women have six, seven… fifteen children. When a woman’s body is weakened by many pregnancies very close together, it become more prone to dangerous complications: for example, there is an increased risk of a rupture of the uterine wall, which can result in a woman bleeding to death. Children in very large families are also more vulnerable to problems like malnutrition. The unavailability of contraception in this zone with very poorly equipped health facilities contributes to the number of large families. In addition, social pressure to bear children is all the higher as the conflict has been raging against a clear background issue of population sizes: the sheer number of people in a particular ethnic group is a key factor in which ethnic group controls which area. The provision of family planning in such a context is therefore a clear life-saving intervention, which comes with high challenges for acceptance.