Trend, Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Contraception among Postpartum Women Attending Family Medicine Center in Dakahlia Governorate

There are special opportunities to identify and treat the health care needs of mothers throughout the prenatal and postpartum phases. Because they often want to avoid a quick repeat pregnancy, many women are encouraged to talk about and/or start using contraception around this period. The current study aimed to assess postpartum women who visit a family medical center's trends, knowledge, attitudes, and practices about postpartum contraception options. This study included 450 postpartum women attending postnatal care clinics for postpartum contraception. Participants were subjected to questionnaires about their knowledge concerning contraception use, attitude towards family planning (FP), attitude about contraceptive methods, any method of contraception used, quality of FP services, availability of contraceptive methods and health care providers. Almost all participants (99.1%) know more than one method, 52.2% of participants know about an emergency contraceptive. Over half of the people who took part (65.0%) have utilized methods of contraception before, and 85.0% currently employ them. Additionally, 91.0% of the participants believe that FP is an appropriate choice for women to have. On the other hand, 57.6% of the subjects have a negative attitude towards discussing the topic of reproductive health, while 64.7% of them have a positive attitude. Good knowledge was significantly associated with positive attitude, good health service and among families having more boy children. Positive attitude was found significantly at older ages, younger age of marriage and younger age at first delivery. Higher knowledge was associated with using injections, followed by oral contraceptive and lastly the IUD.