Integration of Family Planning with Maternal Care Services: Opportunity to enhanced Service Provision in Urban Uttar Pradesh, India

Considerations around repositioning family planning emphasize the need to integrate FP counseling and services with maternal and child health services particularly postpartum and post-abortion care. This paper examines the effect of the exposure to FP counseling and services during antenatal care, delivery and postpartum care on the use of contraceptives in four cities of Uttar Pradesh. Using midterm data collected in 2012 as part a longitudinal study, this paper focuses on women who had delivered in last two years (n=975). Among these, 36 percent reported adopting modern contraceptive postpartum, while 21 percent adopted traditional. Further, data reveals that only a small proportion of women received FP information and services during ANC (18%), delivery (22%) and PNC (13%), though large proportion had come in contact with providers. Multivariate analysis shows that women who delivered at facility and received counseling/services at that time are more likely to use contraceptive post-partum, than those who delivered either at home or did not receive any information in the facility. Clearly, the opportunity to reach potential FP clients with information and services during antenatal and delivery care services is largely missed, which needs to be strengthened to improve use of modern contraceptive methods.