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Postpartum unmet need for family planning and contraceptive use in the Philippines: Evidence from the 2013 and 2017 Philippine Demographic and Health Surveys

Elma Laguna, University of the Philippines Diliman
Maria Paz Marquez, University of the Philippines Population Institute
Loren Bausell, USAID Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting for Improved Health (CLAimHealth), Panagora Group for USAID/Philippines
Mary Ann Lansang, USAID Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting for Improved Health (CLAimHealth), Panagora Group for USAID/Philippines

The study examines prospective unmet need for family planning and contraceptive use among postpartum women in the Philippines using data from the 2013 and 2017 Philippine Demographic and Health Surveys. The analysis reveals a high level of prospective unmet need for family planning among postpartum women: 44.5% in 2013 and 39.6% in 2017. Contraceptive use during the postpartum period increased notably, from 47% 2008 to 56% in 2017. This increase is attributed to the significant rise in the proportion of women who used modern methods, from 65% in 2013 to 77% in 2017. While the majority of users still rely on short-acting contraceptive methods such as the pill, the results show an increasing percentage of women who are using long-acting and permanent methods between 2013 and 2017. Employing binary logistic regression, age, education, marital status, number of living children, and place of delivery of last child were found to be significant predictors of the likelihood of having a prospective unmet need for family planning during the postpartum period. Programmatic, policy and research recommendations on maternal health care utilization, family planning during the postpartum period, and strategies for social and behavior change are proposed based on the results of the study.

Keywords: Family planning and contraception, Demographic and social surveys, Fertility and childbirth

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P11.