Exploring the factors why some mothers doesn't want to use family planning.

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Family planning is the practice of controlling the number of children in a family and the intervals between their births. Family planning may involve consideration of the number of children a woman wishes to have, including the choice to have no children, as well as the age at which she wishes to have them (World Health Organization, 2017).

One of the 12 legacies of Duterte Health Agenda is to have a zero unmet need. What is unmet need? The standard definition of unmet need for family planning includes in the numerator women who are fecund and sexually active but are not using any method of contraception, and report not wanting any more children or wanting to delay the birth of their next child for at least two years. More, the concept of unmet need points to the gap between women's reproductive intentions and their contraceptive behavior (World Health Organization, 2015).

Globally, there are 214 million women of reproductive age in developing countries who want to avoid pregnancy are not using a modern contraceptive method (WHO, 2017).
In the Philippines, there are approximately 6 million women of reproductive age (WRA) who have unmet need for family planning, of which 2 million are poor. As of June 2017, 610,998 or 31% of poor WRA were identified with unmet need for family planning, of which 356,460 or 58% received family planning counseling and services (Department of Health, 2017).

Despite the robust implementation of the programs governing family planning, a large number of women are still non-acceptors of the family planning commodities.
I explored the factors influencing the unmet needs for family planning among mothers especially on their behavioral aspect. It employed focus group discussion among selected women with unmet need for family planning to gather necessary data. Based on the gathered data I find out that;

Unreadiness to Family Planning,
It is a significant hindrance to the implementation of family planning methods. The informants agreed that their lack of readiness is brought by their lack of knowledge on family planning, fear to the side effects of the family planning commodities and the lack of support system as they go along with the method.

Hesitance to Use Family Planning,
Some informants are refusing family planning primarily because of their husband’s decision as well as misconceptions on family planning commodities. In the country where families are usually patriarchal, the decision is always laid on the head of the family which is the father/husband. Likewise, some informants believe that family planning brings no advantages.

Currently 6 million Filipina lack access to family planning, and of these 2 million live in poverty. More than half of pregnancies in the Philippines are unintended and 90% of these occurred in the absence of birth control.
This is why we, the Public Health Nurses give the best efforts we can give to provide care, to reassure the client, and to provide information for us to attain the zero unmet needs and prevent unwanted pregnancies that sometimes lead to abortion.