A facility birth can be the time to start family planning: postpartum intrauterine device experiences from six countries.

Initiation of family planning at the time of birth is opportune, since few women in low-resource settings who give birth in a facility return for further care. Postpartum family planning (PPFP) and postpartum intrauterine device (PPIUD) services were integrated into maternal care in six low- and middle-income countries, applying an insertion technique developed in Paraguay. Facilities with high delivery volume were selected to integrate PPFP/PPIUD services into routine care. Effective PPFP/PPIUD integration requires training and mentoring those providers assisting women at the time of birth. Ongoing monitoring generated data for advocacy. The percentages of PPIUD acceptors ranged from 2.3% of women counseled in Pakistan to 5.8% in the Philippines. Rates of complications among women returning for follow-up were low. Expulsion rates were 3.7% in Pakistan, 3.6% in Ethiopia, and 1.7% in Guinea and the Philippines. Infection rates did not exceed 1.3%, and three countries recorded no cases. Offering PPFP/PPIUD at birth improves access to contraception.

Ethiopian soils harbor natural populations of rhizobia that form symbioses with common bean ( Phaseolus vulgaris L.).

The diversity and taxonomic relationships of 83 bean-nodulating rhizobia indigenous to Ethiopian soils were characterized by PCR-RFLP of the internally transcribed spacer (ITS) region between the 16S and 23S rRNA genes, 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MLEE), and amplified fragment-length polymorphism. The isolates fell into 13 distinct genotypes according to PCR-RFLP analysis of the ITS region. Based on MLEE, the majority of these genotypes (70%) was genetically related to the type strain of Rhizobium leguminosarum. However, from analysis of their 16S rRNA genes, the majority was placed with Rhizobium etli. Transfer and recombination of the 16S rRNA gene from presumptively introduced R. etli to local R. leguminosarum is a possible theory to explain these contrasting results. However, it seems unlikely that bean rhizobia originating from the Americas (or Europe) extensively colonized soils of Ethiopia because Rhizobium tropici, Rhizobium gallicum, and Rhizobium giardinii were not detected and only a single ineffective isolate of R. etli that originated from a remote location was identified. Therefore, Ethiopian R. leguminosarum may have acquired the determinants for nodulation of bean from a low number of introduced bean-nodulating rhizobia that either are poor competitors for nodulation of bean or that failed to survive in the Ethiopian environment. Furthermore, it may be concluded from the genetic data presented here that the evidence for separating R. leguminosarum and R. etli into two separate species is inconclusive.