Knowledge, attitude and readiness to use contraceptives among postpartum women at a tertiary hospital in southwest Nigeria.

Background: Postpartum family planning is vital in the prevention of unintended pregnancy and closely spaced pregnancies in the first year post-delivery. This study was designed to examine the postpartum women’s knowledge, attitude, belief and readiness to contraceptive use. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in the postnatal clinic of the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria using an interviewer-assisted structured questionnaire among one hundred and ninety-four consenting recently delivered women. Data was analysed using IBM Statistics for Windows Version 23.0. Tests of association was done using chi-square and statistical significance was set at p-value of < 0.05. Results: Many of the respondents (60.8%) were in the age group 30-39 years and the majority (90.3%) had tertiary level of education. Most of the respondents got their information from health talks at antenatal clinic (42.8%) and health workers (42.3%). The majority (82.5%) of respondents were aware of contraception and 157(80.9%) intended to use contraceptives, however, only 54(34.4%) were willing to adopt a method at the postnatal clinic visit. The most preferred contraceptive methods were implants (23.4%). Respondents with three or more children alive(p=0.001), had statistically significant associations with prior use of contraception while those with the tertiary level of education(p=0.001) and of the Christian religion (p=<0.001) had statistically significant associations with good knowledge of contraception.  Conclusion:  The knowledge and readiness to use contraceptives was high but only about half were willing to adopt a method at the postnatal clinic. Robust prenatal counselling may help to increase the uptake of postpartum contraception.