Characteristics of Injectable Contraceptive Users In a Low-Income Population in Texas

Haleh Sangi-Haghpeykar Alfred N. Poindexter 3rd Deana C. Moseley Louise Bateman Eladio D. Reid

First published online:

Abstract / Summary

Among 600 women at 17 family planning clinics in Texas who expressed interest in using the hormonal injectable depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), 536 (89%) actually received the injectable. Thirty percent of the DMPA recipients were younger than 21 and 77% were not married. The average numbers of pregnancies and births were 1.9 and 1.2 per woman; one-third of the women had had at least one abortion. The majority of women receiving DMPA (66%) were using it to space births. Their main sources of information about the method were friends (42%) and health care providers (37%), and the most commonly reported reason for its use was dissatisfaction with previous contraceptive methods.

(Family Planning Perspectives, 27:208-211 & 225, 1995)

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