Publication:

Study of community awareness regarding contraception and its practices

Background Family planning (FP) programmes impact women’s health by providing universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services and counselling information. The ability to decide freely the number, spacing and timing of one’s children is a basic human right, endorsed at the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994. Family planning programmes are associated with lower fertility and lower maternal mortality. Through family planning programmes, women gain access to contraceptives, increasing the likelihood that they can achieve their desired family size.

Methods Married women 18-49 years of age were recognised and randomly selected from different areas Indore. Preformed questionnaire containing demographic information and relevant questions was used for data collection.

Results About 80.6% women were aware about PNC contraception. Majority undergone female sterilization (40.0%), 24.8% were using condoms, followed by IUCDs (6.5%) and contraceptive pills (4.7%).

Conclusions In this cross sectional study, awareness regarding contraceptive practices and taboos was not found to be at par with the requirement and lower in concurrence with low education, income, rural residence. Specific intervention programs need to be planned to improve their health practices and thereby improving the health status of the mother and child.