Assessing the impact of family planning advice on unmet need and contraceptive use among currently married women in Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

Background: Counseling/advice is one of the key interventions to promote family planning (FP) in developing countries, including India. It helps to improve the quality of care and reduce maternal deaths. This paper investigates the continuity of maternal health (MH) service utilization from antenatal care to post-natal care and the impact this service utilization has on contraceptive use and on meeting the demand for family planning among currently married women in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. Methods and Findings: The study assesses the impact of FP advice on unmet need and contraceptive use by adopting the propensity score matching method. It uses data from the District Level Household Survey (DLHS) (2007-08) that covered 76,147 currently married women (CMW) in the age group 15-44 years in Uttar Pradesh. Results show that the utilization of MH services [Antenatal care (ANC), institutional delivery, Postnatal care (PNC)] and FP advice during ANC and PNC has led to increase in current use of contraception by 3.7% (p