Outreach and integration programs to promote family planning in the extended postpartum period

The authors explain that a review of data from lower income countries demonstrate a large unmet need for family planning among women in the first year after the birth of a child.  Further, they explain that the World Health Organisation recommends birth spacing to improve the health of mothers and children.One strategy to improve birth spacing is to improve the use of family planning during the first year postpartum. The authors conducted this structured literature review to determine the effectiveness  of postpartum family-planning programmes.The authors included studies in the review if interventions took place in the prepartum period or within the first year postpartum, and if the family-planning outcomes of pregnancy or contraception uptake/use were assessed and where interventions were compared to an alternative.FindingsThe authors report that interventions that were associated with improved family planning outcomes included: prenatal care, home visitation programmes, and educational interventions but they concluded that these interventions need further investigation in low-resource settings.Interventions that need further investigation regardless of setting include mother–infant care integration, multidisciplinary interventions, and cash transfer/microfinance interventions.ConclusionsThe authors concluded that programmatic interventions may improve birth spacing and contraceptive uptake. Larger well-designed studies in international settings are needed to determine the most effective ways to deliver family planning interventions.To read this article for free, click here.Sonalkar, S., Mody, S., & Gaffield, M.E. (2014). Outreach and integration programs to promote family planning in the extended postpartum period. International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, 124(3): 193-197.