Awareness and acceptance of contraceptive methods among post-partum patients

Abstract

Background: India is the second most populous country in the world and in the next few decades it will cross china if it keeps on increasing by this exponential growth. India was the first country in the world to launch the family planning program in 1951. Despite this fact India still lags behind in practicing contraception and limiting their family size. Even though various measures for encouraging the usage of contraception have been taken up, the achievement in this field was not up to the expectation due to various social and cultural factors. The aim of our study is to (1) Estimate the prevalence of awareness for various contraceptive methods among post-partum patients and (2) To estimate the usage of contraceptive methods among post-partum patients and evaluate the various factors affecting the same.

Methods: A prospective cross sectional interview based study was conducted in the department of obstetrics & gynecology, Smt. SCL general hospital, Smt. NHL municipal medical college, Ahmedabad, India. Data was collected from July 2013 to July 2015 randomly and analyzed. The women were counseled regarding post-partum contraception after assessment of their knowledge and practice. The interview included information on age, race and religion, occupation, educational status of the female as well as the husband, number of children, knowledge regarding various contraceptive methods, the source of knowledge, their attitude, the reasons for usage and non-acceptance of various contraceptive practices.

Results: Total numbers of deliveries were up to 11250. Out of the total 7110 (63.2%) of the females were aware of one or more methods of contraception but the number of women practicing contraception was very low which accounted to only 1067 (15%). Acceptance of contraception was significantly associated with the female and her husband’s attitude, influence of family members, education status and socio economic status. Most of the women belonged to the age group of 22 to 25 years out of which 4725 (42%) were literate and only 788(7%) had education level above high school. Media including television and radio were the main source of contraceptive knowledge. The main reasons for non-acceptance of contraception was desire for more children especially a son due to family pressure followed by other reasons like fear of using devices, other associated myths, misconceptions and religious beliefs and customs.

Conclusions: In our study the awareness of contraception accounted to 63.2% but the acceptance of contraception was only 15% and was significantly affected by the educational status of the couple and the usage of the antenatal and postnatal services available. Providing effective, high quality antenatal and post-partum contraceptive counseling can reduce not only unintended pregnancies but also induced abortions and decrease maternal morbidity and mortality as a whole. In order to improve the situations, health authorities should be encouraged to provide counseling on post-partum contraceptive methods during antenatal and immediate post-partum period on a wider scale.