BACKGROUND In spite of major gains in contraceptive prevalence over the last few decades, many women in most parts of the developing world who would like to delay or avoid pregnancy do not use any method of contraception. This paper seeks to: a) examine whether experiencing an unintended pregnancy is associated with future use of contraception controlling for a number factors including poverty ...

Improving access to long-acting, reversible methods of contraception (LARCs)—which provide highly effective, long-term, and easy-to-use protection against unintended pregnancy—is of crucial importance to the lives of countless individual women. Yet, among family planning experts, consensus remains elusive on the important issue of whether and how client counseling should emphasize this top tier...

The contraceptive method chosen is an important determinant of contraceptive discontinuation. However, method choice is endogenous to contraceptive discontinuation. Using data from the 1997 Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey, we apply a multilevel multi-process model to examine the impact of method choice on three types of contraceptive discontinuation. We confirm that method choice is end...

A survey of 332 women, ages 15-49 years, was carried out in the Ga East district of Ghana to identify community knowledge, perceptions, and factors associated with ever using modern family planning (FP). Knowledge of modern FP was almost universal (97 percent) although knowledge of more than three methods was 56 percent. About 60 percent of all and 65 percent of married respondents reported eve...

BACKGROUND Increased contraceptive use has been associated with a decrease in high parity births, births that occur close together in time, and births to very young or to older women. These types of births are also associated with high risk of under-five mortality. Previous studies have looked at the change in the level of contraception use and the average change in these types of high-risk bir...

Currently available contraceptive methods have not eliminated the burden of unintended pregnancy. Future progress will require technological advancements, leading to the development of novel and highly effective birth control strategies that will be acceptable to the general population. Included are highlights of some of the ongoing research, demonstrating the development of methods with the po...

Objective To analyze the determinants of emergency contraception non-use among women in unplanned and ambivalent pregnancies. Method Cross-sectional study with a probabilistic sample of 366 pregnant women from 12 primary health care units in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. A multinomial logistic regression was performed, comparing three groups: women who used emergency contraception to prevent o...

BACKGROUND To describe the impact of the post-abortion family planning counseling in bringing about the contraceptive usage in women who had induced abortion in a family planning clinic. METHOD The Diyarbakir Office of Turkish Family Planning Association (DTFPA) is a nonprofit and nongovernmental organization which runs a family planning clinic to serve the lower socio-economic populations, i...

CONTEXT Unmet need for contraception has become a central concept in the family planning field and one of the most important indicators for program planning and evaluation. The measure has faced criticism, however, for not taking into account women's stated intention to use contraceptives. METHODS Using longitudinal data on more than 2,500 rural Bangladeshi women in 128 villages, this study l...

BACKGROUND Contraceptives are one of the most cost effective public health interventions. An understanding of the factors influencing users' preferences for contraceptives sources, in addition to their preferred methods of contraception, is an important factor in increasing contraceptive uptake. This study investigates the effect of women's contextual and individual socioeconomic positions on t...