Family planning needs of women experiencing severe maternal morbidity in Accra, Ghana : another missed opportunity? : original research article

Women with severe maternal morbidity represent an important group to target for increasing contraceptive uptake. Our objective was to explore the future fertility intentions, use of family planning including methods and reasons for not wanting to use contraception among a group of women who had traumatic delivery experience at a tertiary teaching hospital in Accra, Ghana. Our results show that despite higher educational attainment, longer hospital stays and intention to limit or stop childbearing among women, there is a missed opportunity for family planning among women with severe maternal morbidity in this urban African hospital setting. Integrating postpartum family planning consultations by linking available services such as reproductive health clinics at the facilities rather than including additional tasks for the midwives and the doctors in the wards could be a sustainable solution in such urban, high-volume settings. Les femmes qui souffrent de la morbidite maternelle severe representent un groupe important a cibler pour faire avancer l'utilisation de la contraception. Notre objectif etait d'etudier les futures intentions de fecondite, l'utilisation de la planification familiale, y compris les methodes et les raisons de ne pas vouloir utiliser la contraception chez un groupe de femmes qui ont vecu l'experience traumatique d'accouchement dans un Centre Hospitalier Universitaire a Accra, au Ghana. Nos resultats montrent que, malgre le niveau de scolarite plus eleve, de plus longs sejours a l'hopital et l'intention de limiter ou d'arreter de procreer chez les femmes, il y a une occasion manquee pour la planification familiale chez les femmes qui ont vecu la morbidite maternelle severe dans ce milieu urbain de l'hopital africain. L'integration des consultations de planification familiale post-partum en reliant les services disponibles tels que les cliniques de sante de la reproduction dans les installations plutot que d'inclure des tâches supplementaires pour les sages-femmes et les medecins dans les salles, pourrait etre une solution durable, dans de tels milieux urbains et a volume eleve.