Uptake of immediate postpartum family planning still low despite awareness

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The majority of women still do not enroll in contraceptives immediately after delivery despite this being recommended as a solution to high rates of unintended pregnancies.

While immediate postpartum family planning is one of the high-impact practices that Uganda can use to bridge the gap in contraceptive use, researchers at Makerere University School of Public Health say only less than 5% of mothers are enrolled on a family planning method immediately after birth.

Prof Fredrick Makumbi a lecturer at the school revealed this on Wednesday while they released findings of studies done in five districts of Kampala, Mukono, Kyenjojo, Gulu, and Tororo to assess the reach, quality, and cost of delivering high-impact practices that can help the country meet family planning targets.

According to the results of the study, while immediate family planning uptake is still low, awareness and training of health workers about this practice were found to be high as 90% of health workers in facilities visited could properly insert an implant and 60% could properly insert an intrauterine device (IUD) across all the regions.

However, while commenting on these findings, Dr. Richard Mugahi the Commissioner of Reproductive and Child Health at the Ministry of Health said it’s quite untenable for mothers to be enrolled in family planning immediately.

He notes that currently while a mother who has had a normal delivery is supposed to be monitored at a health facility for 24 hours before discharge, many mothers escape immediately after they stabilize, even before the elapse the recommended time.

For him, the reason uptake has been low is partly because women are not well educated about it during antenatal care lessons.

With such findings, experts attending the results dissemination meeting urged health workers to be more innovative suggesting for instance that an IUD can be inserted while a cesarean section delivery is being conducted for any mother who consents to this. This was assessed during the study and it was found that a quarter of the health workers in the five districts had already been trained on this.

But, apart from health worker skills and mothers’ awareness, attendees raised concerns that family planning supplies are many times out of stock, something that also affects immediate uptake.

Meanwhile, according to previous research done by the School of public health together with the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, more than half of the mothers who get a repeat pregnancy a year after delivery conceive unintentionally.

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