Postpartum uptake of contraception in rural northern Malawi: A prospective study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Cross-sectional estimates of contraceptive use do not provide understanding of time to postpartum uptake. This paper uses a range of Malawian data sources: a prospective study to explore time to uptake of contraception and a cross-sectional survey to assess whether sexually active postpartum women whose fecundity has returned use contraception, and whether abstaining/amenorrheic women report using contraception.A demographic surveillance site (DSS) in Malawi was used to identify 7393 women aged 15-49 years eligible for a 1-year prospective study of contraception using provider-recorded data on patient-held records (2012-2013). This provided a reliable record of time to uptake of postpartum contraception. The average timing of resumption of sexual activities after postpartum abstinence and return of menses was estimated from a population-based sexual behaviour survey in the DSS (2010-2011).Of 4678 women recruited to the prospective contraception study, 442 delivered an infant during the observation period. Of these, 28.4% used modern contraception within 6 months of delivery. However, at 6-9 months after delivery, only 28.0% women had started menstruation and resumed sexual activities; of these, 77.6% used contraception. Amongst abstaining/amenorrheic women, a quarter reported contraceptive use.The low uptake of postpartum contraception is likely due to many women abstaining and/or experiencing amenorrhea. Self-reports of contraceptive use amongst abstaining/amenorrheic women bring into question the quality of cross-sectional surveys and demonstrate that contraceptive use by women at low risk of pregnancy could contribute to the Malawi paradox of high contraceptive use and high fertility. Given relatively low risk of pregnancy in the postpartum period in this context, a focus on long-acting/permanent methods may be more effective to avert unintended pregnancies.There has been increasing interest in the utility of postpartum contraceptive programmes to assist women to space births. Our findings suggest that, although uptake of contraception is low, this is partly due to postpartum abstinence and amenorrhea. Provision of long-acting/permanent methods will be more effective for women after delivery.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".