Contraception

Consumer behaviour and contraceptive decisions: resolving a decades-long puzzle

Martha Campbell
2006

Introduction: Demographers’ theoretical explanations for fertility decline have been based for decades on an assumption that couples make family size decisions influenced by a changing balance between costs and benefits of childbearing, resulting in parents’ reduced demand for children. It has been widely assumed that these decisions are based on changes in social or economic factors, such as increased education, wealth or economic opportunities, or urbanisation, or other related factors in their lives. However, a number of situations in developing countries have been documented showing...

The Pill and the blackboard

Malcolm Potts
2006

We know from our own observations and from countless studies that education is an immensely powerful driver of social change and improvement. At the level of basic health, an educated woman looks after her own health and that of her children more successfully than an uneducated woman. Education – especially the education of women – opens the door to greater wealth and hopefully greater fulfilment. The fact that the mother’s access to contraception can improve the educational opportunities of her children, as well as her health and that of her infants, is an insight we should always value....

Population and environment in the twenty-first century

Malcolm Potts
2007

Abstract: In the past 50 years global population grew by 3.7 billion. There is a large unmet need for family planning and wherever women have been given the means and the information to decide if or when to have the next child, then family size has fallen, often rapidly. However, since the UN 1994 Cairo conference on population and development, support for international family has collapsed and fertility declines in many of the poorest countries have stalled. Amongst some of the most vulnerable groups family size has risen. The investment made in voluntary family planning will largely...

Atlas of Contraception

Malcolm Potts
Pramilla Senanayake
2008

This revised and updated Atlas provides a comprehensive guide to modern contraceptive practice. The book is heavily illustrated with color photographs and line drawings that guide the reader through the various options available and provide a valuable educational resource. The supporting text offers a concise description of family planning in today’s world.

Family planning is needed, simple and inexpensive. This book provides an invaluable resource for the wide range of physicians and allied health workers who advise and deliver contraceptive care.

Published by Informa...

Letter: Effect of Contraceptive Access on Birth Rate

Malcolm Potts
Martha Campbell
2008

Letter in response to the Perspective “REPRODUCING IN CITIES” by Mace published in Science February 2008 in Science

Published in Science, May 16 2008, 874

Download PDF, click here.

Adolescent Childbearing in Nicaragua: A Quantitative Assessment of Associated Factors

Katherine C. Lion
Ndola Prata
Chris Stewar
2009

CONTEXT: Nicaragua has one of the highest adolescent fertility rates in the world, but little is known about why approximately half of Nicaraguan women give birth before age 20.

METHODS: Data from the 2001 Nicaragua Demographic and Health Survey were used to examine the sexual and reproductive behavior of 3,142 females aged 15–19. Age at sexual debut and age at first birth were assessed using life table analysis, and the impacts of various factors on these measures were then examined in Cox proportional hazard models. Among sexually active females, current use of modern...

A Woman Cannot Die from a Pregnancy She Does Not Have

Malcolm Potts
Nadia Diamond-Smith
2011

The fifth Millennium Development Goal has brought critical attention to the unacceptably high burden of maternal mortality and the need to improve antenatal health care. However, many of the approaches to reducing maternal mortality (e.g., increasing the number of deliveries at health facilities with skilled attendants or improving access to emergency obstetric care) are complex and will take time to implement. In the meantime, maternal mortality can be reduced relatively inexpensively by preventing unwanted pregnancy through family planning. The decision to practice family planning is...

Provision of injectable contraceptives in Ethiopia through community-based reproductive health agents

Ndola Prata
Amanuel Gessessew
Alice Cartwrightc
Ashley Fraser
2011

This collaborative project demonstrates that receiving injectable contraceptives from community-based reproductive health agents proved as safe and acceptable to Ethiopian women as receiving them in health posts from health extension workers. These findings support the development, introduction and scale-up of programs to train community-based health workers to safely administer injectable contraceptives.

Read full article, click here.

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Meeting the need: youth and family planning in sub-Saharan Africa

Ndola Prata
Karen Weidert
Amita Sreenevas
2012

Background: The need for a concerted effort to address the gaps in family planning services for youth in sub-Saharan Africa has been underreported and underexplored.

Study Design: Trends in fertility, childbearing, unmet need for family planning options and contraceptive prevalence (CP) among youth are described with data from six African countries with four consecutive Demographic and Health Surveys. Estimates of exposure to risk of pregnancy and number of new contraceptives users needed to maintain and double CP in 2015 are calculated using current CP and...

Hemoglobin and serum ferritin levels in women using copper-releasing or levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine devices: a systematic review

Ndola Prata
Richard F. Lowe
2012

Background: The use of intrauterine devices as a contraceptive method has been steadily growing in developing countries. Anemia in reproductive-age women is a growing concern in those settings.

Study Design: A systematic review of studies with measured hemoglobin and serum ferritin at baseline and after 1 year of use of copper intrauterine devices (IUDs) or a levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system (LNG IUS) was performed.

Results: Fourteen studies involving copper IUDs in nonanemic women and 4 studies in anemic women and 6...