Examining the linkages between continuum of maternity services and postpartum modern contraceptive uptake among young women in India: Insights from the 2019-21 Indian Demographic and Health Survey

Monirujjaman Biswas, Jawaharlal Nehru University

The adoption of maternity services and postpartum modern contraception are the two most crucial components that help in reducing maternal and infant mortality; still, India is consistently struggling with it. This paper, therefore, aimed to examine the linkages between the use of maternity services and postpartum modern contraceptive adoption. The required reproductive calendar data were extracted from the 2019–21 National Family Health Survey (NFHS) datasets. The assessment was made based on a sample of currently married women aged 15–24 years who had given most recent childbirth in five years preceding the survey. For the analysis, a time-to-event approach was applied using the Kaplan-Meier survival statistic, Log-Rank Chi-square test and Cox-Proportional Hazard (Cox-PH) models. Nearly 42% of young users adopted postpartum modern contraception in 2019–21. The Cox- PH models revealed that the associations between various components of maternity services and postpartum modern contraceptive uptake were strongly significant, even after controlling for selected socio-economic and demographic correlates. The findings of this study reinforced the urgent need for implementing integrated maternal-child health and family planning programmes and for boosting effective family planning counselling by health professionals to promote and motivate young women with a desire to early adoption of modern contraception in subsequent months after a recent childbirth.

Keywords: Children, Adolescents, and Youth, Family Planning and Contraception, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Data and Methods

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