The maternal health care utilization and subsequent contraceptive use in India

The integration of family planning and maternal and child health services was anticipated with the rationales that the women who come to use maternal and child health services may get exposed to the counselling and promotional efforts for family planning, may overcome uncertainties and myths associated with modern contraception and the integration will be able to save time-related cost of obtaining a method. Utilizing the contraceptive history data collected in National Family Health Survey-3 (2005-06), this study tries to examine the relationship between MCH services and subsequent contraceptive use in India. Multinomial regression models and Cox proportional hazard models evaluated whether services sought during ANC and/or PNC visit predicted the contraceptive adoption. The preliminary findings suggest that women visited for ANC and/or PNC were more likely to opt for a modern contraceptive method during postpartum period.