'Married teens least likely to use contraceptives'

Shocking or not? A study claims teenage wives were least likely to use contraceptives compared to women aged 20 and above.

National Statistics Office said survey results showed that women between ages 15 to 19 were the least likely to practice family planning.

Respondents aged 20 to 44 were meanwhile more likely to practice family planning. However, some women will likely skip contraceptives by the time they reach 45 to 49.

NSO added that poor households are less likely to use family planning methods, especially those in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao which was tagged as the area that has the least number of women using contraceptives.

Citing the 2011 Family Health Survey, NSO director Carmelita Ericta said only 43.1 percent of poor households practice family planning against 51.3 percent in non-poor households. In ARMM, which has four of the country’s poorest provinces, only 19.1 percent used modern family planning methods and 4.4 percent used traditional methods.

NSO also said that among women "with no grade completed," only 20 percent practiced family planning while around 40 percent of women who had some elementary education used contraceptives. In contrast, at least 50 percent of women with "a higher level of education" practiced family planning.

"Those with no education are the least likely to practice it," Ericta said.

Pills preferred

The 2011 Family Health Survey found pills the preferred method of contraception among those polled. Around 18.7 percent of poor women used it while 20.3 percent of non-poor women did.

Ligation, or female sterilization, was the next most common family planning method used. "The survey findings reveal that 5.2 percent of poor women as compared to 10.0 percent of non-poor women use female sterilization," NSO said. The survey also found that intrauterine devices (IUDs) are preferred by more poor women (3.6 percent) than non-poor women.

"The 2011 FHS is a nationally representative survey of about 53,000 households. From these households, about 53,000 women age 15-49 years were successfully interviewed," NSO said.