Contraception in Indonesia: Village midwives facilitate switching to injectable methods

Indonesia established its Village Midwife Program in 1989 to combat high maternal mortality rates by addressing gaps in access to reproductive health care for rural women. Two of the program’s additional goals were to (1) increase access to and utilization of family planning services and to (2) broaden the mix of contraceptives available. Data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey are used to examine the program’s effect on contraceptive practice. Intent‐to‐treat estimates show that village midwives did not affect overall contraceptive prevalence but did affect method choice. Over time, for women using contraceptives, midwives were associated with increased odds of injectable contraceptive use, decreased odds of oral contraceptive use, and decreased odds of contraceptive implant use. Although the Government hoped that village midwives would channel women into longer‐lasting methods, the women’s switching behavior indicates that the program succeeded in providing additional outlets for and promoting use of contraceptive injections.

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