Document Type

Brief

Publication Date

2001

Abstract

Approximately half of deliveries in Honduras take place in hospitals, however hospitals rarely offer family planning (FP) services to postpartum or postabortion patients. In 1999, the Honduran Ministry of Health and the Population Council began a two-year project to expand access to FP counseling and methods following childbirth or treatment for incomplete abortion. The intervention built upon a previous Population Council project that showed that 30 percent of women hospitalized for a delivery or an abortion-related complication were interested in adopting an FP method prior to discharge. In all five hospitals participating in the study, delivery was the principal reason for admission. Admission for abortion complications was also relatively common. The intervention consisted of training all staff members assisting postpartum and postabortion women in FP service promotion and counseling; training 65 physicians and nurses in contraceptive methodology; providing FP methods, equipment, and educational aids; and supervising activities. As detailed in this brief, when providers were trained to provide FP counseling and methods to postpartum and postabortion women, the proportion of women receiving this information doubled and the proportion who received a method tripled.

Comments

Also available in Spanish

DOI

10.31899/rh2001.1014

Language

English

Project

Frontiers in Reproductive Health

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