Kenya is the seventh largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa and has been one of the fastest-grow­ing countries in the world. But the 1989 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) has shown that during the last decade fertility has declined for the first time in Kenya's demographic history, from a level of 7.9 children per woman in the late 1970's (KCBS,1980) to 6.7 in the late 1980's (KNCPD and IRD, 1989). As many as 820,000 births were averted during the 1980's as a result of this decline.