CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

• Background of the study

The desire to control human reproduction has been there since time immemorial, but its achievement, to any meaningful degree, is rather recent. Almost the only checks on population growth in the past were disease, famine, war, infanticide and deserhen of the aged.

The use of contraceptive plays a pivotal role in population control, poverty reduction and human development. Robust family planning services have a range of benefits, including maternal and infant survival better nutrition, increased educational attainment, a storger position of girls and women at home and in the society, prevention of sexually transmissible diseases and environmental conservation (brenstein and Hasen, griffin, 2006) and world bank (2004)

Effective family planning programs make the rapid spread of voluntary modere family planning method such program achieve their personal reproductive goals (Robey et al: 1994)

Many women in developing counties use contraceptive to prevent unwanted and unplanned pregnancies. Contraceptives use levels have increased form 10% in 1960s to more than 50% in 1990s in developing countries despite an increase in contraceptive use in sub-saharan Africa, the region is still characterized by a high level of fertility a considerable unmet needs for contraception. In malaw, use of modern contraception methods has dramatically increased form 7% in 19 to 26% in 2000, while the fertility level has slightly decreased form 6.7 children per women to 6.3 during same period of time. However, nearly one in 3 currently married woman has an unmet need for contraceptive and the demand for contraceptive is satisfied for only half of these women/ CSA and ORC Macro 2001)

Despite the numerous effort put in place to increase modern contraceptive use in Cameroon as a means to fight maternal and infant mortality the prevalence of modern contraception has shown only a slow increase and maternal mortality is constantly rising. The promotion of contraceptive has been show to reduce poverty, hunger, maternal and infant mortality and contribute to women’s empowerment. This, inspile the fact that the contraceptive prevalence is still very low only 26% for married woman all forms inclusive and 13% for modern contraception (DHS 2004). But many resource limited countries still here very low rate of contraception use (department of public health, faculty of medicine and biomedical sciences, university of Yaounde. Po Box 1364, Yaounde Cameroon.

• Statement of problem

The problem of uumet need of family for the less developed nations in considered as a major impediment to the development of its people, especially the wnerable group including women and children. The ultiplicity of factors and the complex nature of the environment of developing nations regarding access, influences decision on health services, and contraceptive measure for that matter, even though extensively examined by many scholars have still not bee subbued

Even though the trends of family planning indicators total fertility rare and contraceptive use in Cameroon have been improving, there is a challenge of increasing access to many women who desire to limit on space births, the non-use of contraceptive by these women, has a commensurate effect on their health and that of their children. This increase in maternal mortality rate form 782 deaths per 100000 live births in 2011 to 467 deaths per 100000 live birth in 2016 (MMC,2016) is on indication of the consequence of complication resulting in pregnancies usually unwanted and unintended in addition, risk of human immune virus (HIV) and sexually transmitted infections (STI) abund. This trend is even higher in rural areas where there is largely limited access to quality care.

District has consistently been one of the lowest in terms of contraceptive use in west region. Despite the consistently low achievement on family planning that is use of contraceptive acceptance rate in the district there has been investigation as to the related causes of the trend. The district has never achieved it own target of 24% of prospective users in the district over the period. This study therefore sought to examine the extent to which prospective users of contraceptives in the districts, percussed and were influenced by contextual factors that could account for the poor response to series on contraceptives.

• Research Question

• What knowledge do women know on contraceptive?
• What factor account for the low patronage of family planning methods in the district?
• What knowledge do these women have on the importance of contraceptive?
• What difficulties do these women face in the used of contraceptive?
  • Study Objectives
    • General Objectives

To assess the knowledge of women of the sandpit community on the importance of contraceptive method and also examine the contextual factor that had facilited the consistently low contraceptive coverage 

• Specific Objective

1. To ass the knowledge of women on contraceptive method
2. To found out if these women know the importance of contraceptive

• Identify challenges the women face in the use of contraceptive.