Determinants of the Duration of Postpartum Abstinence among Women in Uganda

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating the determinants of duration of postpartum abstinence among women in Uganda. The assessment was made using socio-economic, demographic and enabling factors using secondary data sourced from the UDHS (2011) survey comprising of 8,674 records of women in the country. However, the assessment was made on 1,423 women who had abstained. The analysis was made using a time-to-event analysis based on the Kaplan-Meier estimate, the Log-rank Chi-square test and Cox-Proportional Hazard Model. In the results, the median duration of abstinence was 2 months (range; 0-35 months) of postpartum abstinence. At the multivariate analysis, significant associations with postpartum abstinence were noted by breastfeeding and contraceptive use, wealth index, region, education level, marital status, extra sexual patterns and antenatal care (p<0.05). Particularly, the rate of return to sexual intercourse was more likely among women using contraceptives and not breastfeeding that had attained primary level of education, married, with extra sexual patterns and had more than four antenatal visits. On the other hand, women from eastern and northern region with no education and from the poorest group were less likely to have early sex after birth. Based on the findings, the study recommends the following measures to prolong postpartum abstinence: (i) Promoting long breast feeding periods until at least 6 months across all women regardless of region, education level, and religion throughout the country. (ii) Educating women during antenatal period so that they are informed about the dangers of early resumption of sexual intercourse after birth.