LAM
Lactational Amenorrhoea Method (LAM) is the short-term method of preventing pregnancy after birth based on evidence that for six months after birth a very high degree of protection naturally occurs against pregnancy, if the mother is fully or nearly fully breast-feeding.
Lea Contraceptive
A barrier contraceptive method that resembles both a cervical cap and a diaphragm, but has a one-way valve.
LGBTI
LGBTI is an abbreviation that covers lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, transvestite, and intersex people. Although it is preferable to avoid abbreviations when possible, LGBTI (or LGBT) has gained recognition because it emphasises a diversity of sexuality and gender identities.
Life Cycle Approach
Reproductive health is a lifetime concern for both women and men at different stages of their lives: girls and boys; adolescents; adulthood; and the older years.
Life Expectancy
The number of years that an average individual is expected to live. This can be computed for actual cohorts of individuals born in a particular year or on a period basis, synthesizing the age-specific mortality rates that apply to different age groups at a given moment in time. The life expectancy is usually computed at birth, but it can also apply to the remaining life times of individuals of any given age.
Life Table
A life table refers to a tabular display of life expectancy and the probability of dying at each age (or age group) for a given population, according to the age-specific death rates prevailing at that time. The life table gives an organized, complete picture of a population's mortality.
Linkages
The term ‘linkages' can be used to describe synergies in policy, programmes, services, and advocacy between the field of sexual and reproductive health and the field of HIV prevention and treatment. It refers to a broad approach based on human rights, of which service integration is a subset.
Live birth
The birth of a living foetus, irrespective of the duration of the pregnancy, which after such separation, breathes or shows other evidence of life, such as beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, whether or not the umbilical cord has been cut or the placenta is attached. Each product of such a birth is considered liveborn.
Low birth weight
The birth of an infant of less than 2,500 g (up to and including 2,499 g).
Lochia
A discharge from the uterus and vagina that occurs during the first few weeks after childbirth.
Low-dose pill
A combined contraceptive pill that contains 35 micrograms of estrogen or less.