Characteristics of a community practicing family spacing, a community study

ABSTRACT

A project was organized by Maternal and Child Welfare Association of Pakistan to demonstrate family planning acceptance through comprehensive MCH services. It was seen that amongst 6162 preconceptional Married Women in the Reproductive Age [MWRA], there were 1513 family planning acceptors with contraceptive acceptance rate of 24.6%. Contraception acceptance was directly related with the number of living children. [4 children have strong association with contraceptive acceptance]. Use of contraception was directly related with the number of living sons. Three sons had stronger association than 0,1 and 2. Family planning acceptance rate was higher in Christians than in Muslims. This may probably be due to greater access to family services for the former group because mostly they work outside home. Income per capita per month had shown indirect relationship for accepting family planning programme indicating the effect of strong MCH and FP programme,. Educational status of MWRA upto metric [including under metric], while education of husbands upto post metric have shown highest rate of FP acceptance This indicates that women required less education / schooling as compared to males who required [post metric education] higher level of education to accept family spacing programmes. No relationship has been found with the occupation of women working outside home and family planning acceptance, due to very small number of [only 3%] working mothers in the area