Changing Scenario in Indian Contraceptive Methods: A Glimpse Through a Tertiary Hospital Statistics

The patient scenario of a tertiary hospital changes with the implementation of various national programmes in any country. These programmes are conceived after understanding the felt need of the society. Though IUCD was available as an interval method of contraception in the past also and was meant to be effective for 10 years, the prerequisite to come again to the medical facility after 6 weeks of childbirth for insertion resulted in almost all patients to dropout and only the highly motivated would come on their own. Post-partum insertion of IUCD at the time of childbirth or within 48 h has addressed the need of contraception in the post-partum period as well as omitted the need for second visit to a health set-up. Earlier, after achieving the desired family goal of children, tubectomy was the preferred choice, irrespective of age of children but PPIUCD seems to have come up as a long-term reversible method of contraception.

The present study was conceived to study the shift of method of long-term contraception from tubal sterilization and vasectomy to PPIUCD over a period of 8 years from 2010 to 2017.

This study was a retrospective analytical study conducted at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Safdarjung Hospital between the years 2010 and 2017. The number of IUCDs inserted post-placental (i.e. within 10 min of delivery of placenta) and within 48 h (of vaginal childbirth) and intra-caesarean (intrauterine insertion while performing caesarean) were recorded and analysed. Also, sterilizations (tubectomy) and interval IUCD insertions done during this time period were compared.

With the introduction of PPIUCD in national family programme, more women are inclining towards long-term spacing method and not resorting to sterilizations. PPIUCD is preferred over interval IUCD.

PPIUCD is there to stay as a method of long-term contraception.