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What do Women Want? Experiences of Low-Income Women with Postpartum Contraception and Contraceptive Counseling
| Lynn M Yee1*, Katherine C Farner1, Erin King2 and Melissa A Simon1 | |
| 1Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States | |
| 2Hope Clinic for Women, Granite City, IL, United States | |
| Corresponding Author : | Lynn M Yee Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine Chicago, IL, United States Tel: 312-472-4685 Fax: 312-472-4687 E-mail: lynn.yee@northwestern.edu |
| Received: August 12, 2015; Accepted: September 16, 2015; Published: September 23, 2015 | |
| Citation: Yee LM, Farner KC, King E, Simon MA (2015) What do Women Want? Experiences of Low-Income Women with Postpartum Contraception and Contraceptive Counseling. J Preg Child Health 2:191.doi:10.4172/2376- 127X.1000191 | |
| Copyright: © 2015 Yee LM, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. | |
| Related article at Pubmed, Scholar Google | |
Abstract
Background: Contraceptive counseling can increase postpartum contraception use, yet the optimal method and timing for counseling are unknown. The objective was to investigate preferences of underserved pregnant and postpartum women regarding contraception use and counseling.
Method: Surveys regarding contraception experiences and perceptions of contraceptive counseling were conducted with 57 women age 18 and older who were postpartum or antepartum with a previous delivery within 5 years and receiving Medicaid-funded care at an academic medical center. Health literacy was assessed using REALM-7. Responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics.
Results: A majority of women reported unplanned pregnancies (78%). Women using contraception at the time of conception reported “not sure” (30%) and “taken wrong” (30%) as primary reasons for failure. Most subjects had at least a high school level of health literacy (88%), desired to use a postpartum contraceptive method (92%) and had a high self-reported understanding of that method (94%). Most women reported receiving counseling (91%) and stated that the best time for counseling was both before and after childbirth (84%). However, only 60% of subjects intended to use the method they were prescribed at discharge; reasons for changing included side effects (37%), desire for different contraception (23%) and too complicated of a method prescribed (17%).
Conclusion: Women perceived the best timing of contraceptive education to be both antepartum and postpartum. Despite a high frequency of prior contraceptive failure, self-reported understanding of the chosen postpartum contraceptive method was high. Contraception counseling should be tailored to a woman’s perceived needs, with such education occurring frequently and within the context of her health literacy.
