Assessing the impact of family planning advice on unmet need and contraceptive use among currently married women in Uttar Pradesh, India.
BACKGROUND
Counseling/advice is one of the key interventions to promote family planning (FP) in developing countries, including India. It helps to improve the quality of care and reduce maternal deaths. This paper investigates the continuity of maternal health (MH) service utilization from antenatal care to post-natal care and the impact this service utilization has on contraceptive use and on meeting the demand for family planning among currently married women in rural Uttar Pradesh, India.


RESULTS
The study assesses the impact of FP advice on unmet need and contraceptive use by adopting the propensity score matching method. It uses data from the District Level Household Survey (DLHS) (2007-08) that covered 76,147 currently married women (CMW) in the age group 15-44 years in Uttar Pradesh. Results show that the utilization of MH services [Antenatal care (ANC), institutional delivery, Postnatal care (PNC)] and FP advice during ANC and PNC has led to increase in current use of contraception by 3.7% (p<.01), 7.3% (p<.01) and 6.8% (p<.01), respectively. However, a greater utilization of these services has not translated into a reduction of unmet need for contraception at a similar manner.


CONCLUSIONS
MH service utilization including FP advice is more effective in increasing current use of spacing methods as compared to limiting methods. Findings support the need for "effective FP advice" interventions to reduce unintended births and unmet need. However, women from Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe communities are less likely to receive MH services. Thus, efforts are required to ensure that currently married women across socio-economic backgrounds have equal opportunity to receive MH services and information on contraceptive use to meet the demand for family planning methods.
Population Services International, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Diwakar
D
Yadav
Save the Children, New Delhi, India.
Preeti
P
Dhillon
D000328:Adult; D003267:Contraception / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005193:Family Planning Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D000068097:Maternal Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D011295:Prenatal Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D018454:Spouses / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult