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- Contraceptive Agents, Female
- Contraceptive Devices, Female
- family planning services
- long-acting reversible contraception
Key messages
Improving postpartum contraception provision, particularly long-acting reversible methods of contraception, in low-resource, high HIV-prevalence settings such as Botswana will reduce unintended pregnancy and associated adverse consequences.
Adaptation of postpregnancy intrauterine device (IUD) insertion techniques for a low-resource setting alongside sustained supervision and mentorship until competence is achieved increases uptake of postpregnancy IUD.
Training all departmental healthcare providers in contraceptive counselling and method provision increases the uptake of postpartum long-acting reversible contraception methods and prevents a missed opportunity for contraception initiation.
Why was change needed?
The most impactful and cost-effective strategy to reduce maternal and perinatal mortality is to enable women to avoid unintended pregnancy. Provision of immediate postpartum contraception, promoted by the WHO, can avert more than 30% of maternal deaths and 10% of child mortality.1–3 In Botswana, the maternal mortality ratio is 166.3 deaths per 100 000 live births, unsafe abortion is consistently in the top three contributors to maternal mortality, over 40% of pregnancies are unintended, and the adolescent birth rate is 44.7 per 1000 women4–6; multiple indicators which demonstrate high unmet need for contraception. Preventing unintended pregnancy in women living with HIV confers additional benefits in terms of optimising healthy pregnancies and reducing vertical HIV transmission.7 Long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), that is, the copper intrauterine device (IUD), the hormonal intrauterine system (IUS) and the progestogen-only implant, are recommended by the WHO as the most effective contraceptive methods.8 Despite this, LARC use was negligible in the most recent Botswana Demographic Survey9 conducted in 2017, with contraceptive prevalence predominantly comprised of condom use.
Initiation of IUDs immediately postpartum is limited in many countries outside of specific implementation programmes.10 Techniques unique to postdelivery, intracaesarean section (C-section) or postevacuation IUD insertion differ from those used for interval IUD insertion and, therefore, require specific provider training, which is not widely available …
Footnotes
GJH and RJR are joint first authors.
Contributors GJH, MNN, BM-N, CM, AM, RJR and SM contributed to conception and design of the study. GJH, CM, AM, RJR and BB were involved in implementation of the intervention. SM contributed to procurement and GJH, TM, RL, NBM, BM-N, MNN, MJ and KMM contributed to mentorship in post-pregnancy IUD insertion. RJR and AM performed the statistical analysis. GJH and RJR wrote the first draft of the manuscript as joint first authors and AM, CM, MNN, TM, MJ, KMK, NBM and RL contributed to subsequent drafts. All authors participated in the study and have read and approved the manuscript.
Funding The study was supported by the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI), grant number IB_LBP-#11897513-CFLI.
Disclaimer The funding source had no role in the design and conduct of the study, data collection, analysis, reporting, or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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