A research report on postpartum family planning use and its associated factors among mothers of Bheerkot municipality, Syangia, Nepal.

Thesis Report.

ABSTRACT:

Background: Globally, more than 90% of women wish to wait two years after giving birth before getting next pregnancy, but just 1 in 7 of them are utilizing services. The use of family planning methods soon after birth is still uncommon in Nepal because of multiple supply-side obstacles and a lack of client knowledge about PPFP. Family planning can reduce maternal mortality by more than 30% and infant mortality by 10%. Postpartum period is the critical period, which helps to reach unmet need of family planning and helps to maintain healthy child spacing so, the purpose of this study is to assess the prevalence of postpartum family planning use among postpartum mothers having children under 2 years of age and factors associated with it.

Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 272 postpartum mothers of Bheerkot municipality, having child of 24 months. A multistage sampling technique was used to enroll the study participants. Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire. The Data were entered into EpiData and analyzed with SPSS. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data.

Results: Only few (18%) mothers of Bheerkot Municipality use postpartum family planning methods. Respondents who had spousal communication were 6.43 times more likely to use the PPFP services than those respondents who had no spousal communication. Similarly, mothers who had favorable attitude were 2.17 times more likely to use the services than who had unfavorable attitude towards using the PPFP services. Mothers who had resumed the physical relation after childbirth were found 8.60 times more likely to use the services and the mothers who had history of use of family planning services were 33.5 times more likely to use the services than those mothers who had not used the services in the past.

Conclusion: Low rate of postpartum family planning methods use was reported from this study. Low utilization of PPFP service is a major challenge to the National Family Planning Program. Designing demand-generating interventions, promoting spousal communication on family planning and awareness campaigns may improve the the knowledge and attitude of peoples toward PPFP and increases the utilization of the services.

Keywords: “Postpartum Family planning”, “Postpartum Contraceptive Use”, “Factor associated”, “Nepal”