The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the contributory factors to the high teenage pregnancy rate within a district hospital in the Ehlanzeni district of the Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. Quantitative, non-experimental, descriptive and exploratory research was conducted to explore the contributory factors to the high teenage pregnancy rate. Data collection was done using a self-designed structured interview schedule. The findings of the study supported the assumptions that there are factors related to biography, individual perceptions, knowledge and awareness of; and practices, perceptions regarding the use of contraception. Perceived seriousness and barriers to the use of safeguards that could have prevented pregnancy contribute to the high teenage pregnancy rate thus emphasise the need to develop strategies to prevent teenage pregnancies / Health Studies / M.A. (Health Studies)

This study assessed the intentions with regard to fertility and use of contraception by women living with HIV/AIDS. The study was a quantitative cross-sectional study on a sample of 362 HIV-positive women in the ART follow-up unit in Adama Hospital Medical College. Large numbers of HIV-positive women with no income, housewives, illiterates and women in the age group of 28-32 years declared their intention to fall pregnant. The most prevalent family planning method among the HIV-positive women before their HIV diagnosis was injectables. After wards the most popular method of contraception was the condom. The results suggest that the counselling about condom use that is offered to HIV positive women yields results, as more women adopt this method of contraception. This is important in view of prevention of HIV infections and re-infections. / Health Studies / M. A. (Public Health)

Au XIXe siècle, enfanter illégitimement représentait une transgression importante. Honteuses, abandonnées par leur amant, craignant d’être répudiées par leur famille et leur communauté, de nombreuses célibataires ne purent assumer les conséquences de leur grossesse. Confrontées à des méthodes contraceptives et abortives inefficaces, incapables d’intenter un procès pour reconnaissance de paternité ou inconscientes du fait que les orphelinats et les maternités leur offraient des alternatives, ces femmes entreprirent de cacher leur grossesse et se résolurent à tuer leur enfant presque immédiatement après leur naissance. La découverte du cadavre d’un nouveau-né déclenchait une enquête officielle et quelques femmes furent trainées devant les tribunaux. Cette étude met l'accent sur le parcours individuel et social des mères infanticides et tente de comprendre les circonstances qui firent d’elles des meurtrières. / During the nineteenth century, illegitimate birth was a major transgression. Abandonned by their lovers, feeling shamed and in constant fear of being repudiated by their families and communities, some unmarried women could not bear the burden of pregnancy. In the face of ineffective contraceptive methods as well as unreliable abortion technics, unable to sue for paternity or unaware that orphanages and maternities offered them alternatives, these women began to hide their pregnancies and resolved to kill their children almost immediately after birth. The discovery of a new-born corpse started a formal investigation, and some women were dragged to court. This study focuses on the individual and social issues surrounding mothers who have commited infanticide and attempts to understand the circumstances that led them to murder their own children.

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the contributory factors to the high teenage pregnancy rate within a district hospital in the Ehlanzeni district of the Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. Quantitative, non-experimental, descriptive and exploratory research was conducted to explore the contributory factors to the high teenage pregnancy rate. Data collection was done using a self-designed structured interview schedule. The findings of the study supported the assumptions that there are factors related to biography, individual perceptions, knowledge and awareness of; and practices, perceptions regarding the use of contraception. Perceived seriousness and barriers to the use of safeguards that could have prevented pregnancy contribute to the high teenage pregnancy rate thus emphasise the need to develop strategies to prevent teenage pregnancies / Health Studies / M. A. (Health Studies)

<p>The overall aim of this thesis was to examine the adoption of emergency contraceptive pills (ECP) in Sweden. Two cross-sectional surveys and two quasi-experimental studies were used. Reasons for induced abortion, contraceptive practices and contraceptive failure were examined in a group of abortion applicants with a waiting-room questionnaire (I) and knowledge, use and practices of ECP were assessed with a postal questionnaire in a population-based sample of young women (II). One community-based information campaign was evaluated with a repeated postal questionnaire (III) and a school-based education intervention was evaluated with repeated class-room questionnaires (IV). Abortion applicants had inadequate contraceptive practices and a low use of ECP. One year after the deregulation of ECP women were highly aware of the method and preferred the pharmacy for the purchase of ECP. Correct knowledge and positive attitudes influenced the willingness to use ECP in the future. The information campaign was noticed by two-thirds of the women and there was an overall trend towards better knowledge, improved attitudes and increased use among all women at follow-up. The school-based intervention improved the students’ knowledge of, and attitudes to, ECP without jeopardizing condom use. The adoption of ECP in Sweden seems to have gone through the first stages of diffusion of an innovation, i.e., developement, dissemination, and adoption, and has reached the stage of implementation since the studies indicated a general awareness of more than 90%, an intention to use in case of need of more than 70%, and womens’ own experience of use of around 30%. The most cited information channels were media, friends and the local Youth Clinic. ECP is gradually becoming a more widely known, accepted and used contraceptive method in Sweden, but must be considered as being only one of many tools in the prevention of unintended pregnancies.</p>

The overall aim of this thesis was to examine the adoption of emergency contraceptive pills (ECP) in Sweden. Two cross-sectional surveys and two quasi-experimental studies were used. Reasons for induced abortion, contraceptive practices and contraceptive failure were examined in a group of abortion applicants with a waiting-room questionnaire (I) and knowledge, use and practices of ECP were assessed with a postal questionnaire in a population-based sample of young women (II). One community-based information campaign was evaluated with a repeated postal questionnaire (III) and a school-based education intervention was evaluated with repeated class-room questionnaires (IV). Abortion applicants had inadequate contraceptive practices and a low use of ECP. One year after the deregulation of ECP women were highly aware of the method and preferred the pharmacy for the purchase of ECP. Correct knowledge and positive attitudes influenced the willingness to use ECP in the future. The information campaign was noticed by two-thirds of the women and there was an overall trend towards better knowledge, improved attitudes and increased use among all women at follow-up. The school-based intervention improved the students’ knowledge of, and attitudes to, ECP without jeopardizing condom use. The adoption of ECP in Sweden seems to have gone through the first stages of diffusion of an innovation, i.e., developement, dissemination, and adoption, and has reached the stage of implementation since the studies indicated a general awareness of more than 90%, an intention to use in case of need of more than 70%, and womens’ own experience of use of around 30%. The most cited information channels were media, friends and the local Youth Clinic. ECP is gradually becoming a more widely known, accepted and used contraceptive method in Sweden, but must be considered as being only one of many tools in the prevention of unintended pregnancies.

This dissertation is based on seventeen months of ethnographic fieldwork that followed the development and diffusion of extended-cycle hormonal contraception, or birth control that is designed to eliminate monthly bleeding. It encompassed several sites and multiple constituencies: a clinical trial, documented medical conferences, users, potential users, and refusers of the pharmaceuticals, along with key academic and popular proponents of their adoption. Extended-cycle contraception is a critical topic because this new generation of pills, IUDs, shots, and implants is not only refiguring the length of women's cycles, but it is also augmenting the extent to which its users' bodies are medicalized, or subjected to a type of manipulation and regulation that was previously impossible. No longer just for pregnancy prevention, these regimens are increasingly touted as elective enhancement technologies that may improve on the human design, on the one hand, and as crucial preventative medicine for diseases such as reproductive cancers, on the other hand. Remarkably, these pharmaceuticals are as socially complex as they are chemically--they may facilitate the renegotiation of constructions of womanhood, nature, and progress.

The attitude of the African male to contraception and the role he plays in the acceptance of contraceptives by his racial group is presented. Over a period of one month the researcher interviewed 220 African males at a primary care private practice. In this study 186 (85%) were aware of contraceptives and 34 (15%) had no knowledge of contraception; 111 (60%) were married and 75 (40%) were unmarried. The 26 - 35 year age group were the most familiar with contraception (57%). The unemployed were the least users of contraceptives (8%), whereas 69% of the professional group were using contraceptives. The average ideal family size of the group was 4 children. No significant cultural barriers to contraception were found. Religion was found to have little effect on contraceptive practice by the African male. Fifty-three percent of the Urban dwellers were using contraceptives compared with only 30% of the Rural inhabitants. Modern methods of contraception are not yet sufficiently known by the African male to be useful to him. Health workers should educate the African male in matters of contraception to achieve the desired objectives of family planning campaigns among this racial group. / Thesis (M.Prax.Med.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1986.

Au XIXe siècle, enfanter illégitimement représentait une transgression importante. Honteuses, abandonnées par leur amant, craignant d’être répudiées par leur famille et leur communauté, de nombreuses célibataires ne purent assumer les conséquences de leur grossesse. Confrontées à des méthodes contraceptives et abortives inefficaces, incapables d’intenter un procès pour reconnaissance de paternité ou inconscientes du fait que les orphelinats et les maternités leur offraient des alternatives, ces femmes entreprirent de cacher leur grossesse et se résolurent à tuer leur enfant presque immédiatement après leur naissance. La découverte du cadavre d’un nouveau-né déclenchait une enquête officielle et quelques femmes furent trainées devant les tribunaux. Cette étude met l'accent sur le parcours individuel et social des mères infanticides et tente de comprendre les circonstances qui firent d’elles des meurtrières. / During the nineteenth century, illegitimate birth was a major transgression. Abandonned by their lovers, feeling shamed and in constant fear of being repudiated by their families and communities, some unmarried women could not bear the burden of pregnancy. In the face of ineffective contraceptive methods as well as unreliable abortion technics, unable to sue for paternity or unaware that orphanages and maternities offered them alternatives, these women began to hide their pregnancies and resolved to kill their children almost immediately after birth. The discovery of a new-born corpse started a formal investigation, and some women were dragged to court. This study focuses on the individual and social issues surrounding mothers who have commited infanticide and attempts to understand the circumstances that led them to murder their own children.

En 2009, selon les résultats de la dernière enquête sociodémographique représentative au niveau national, le taux de fécondité totale de la Syrie était de 3.5 enfants par femme. Il dépasse d’environ 1.5 enfant le seuil de remplacement des générations, estimé à 2.1 enfants par femme. L’évolution de la fécondité syrienne a connu plusieurs phases ; la première, où la fécondité atteignait des « records mondiaux » et résistait à tout changement, puis la phase d’une baisse rapide amorcée au milieu des années 1980, suivie par une phase d’une lente baisse ou d’une quasi-stagnation de la fécondité dès le début des années 2000 et jusqu’à nos jours. Si la baisse rapide de la fécondité a été déclenchée sous la contrainte économique liée à la crise multifacettes des années 1980, sa stagnation récente est, au moins en partie, liée aux préceptes religieux et à des facteurs culturels qui constituent des obstacles à la baisse de fécondité au-dessous d’un certain niveau. Le « modèle géographique » de la fécondité qui persiste dans le temps en est témoin : les populations des gouvernorats du Nord-Est du pays, Deir-ez-zor, Al-Hassakeh et Al-Rakka, et des deux gouvernorats des frontières sud, Al-Quneitra et Dar’a, enregistrent la fécondité la plus élevée ; tandis que les populations des gouvernorats côtiers, Lattaquié et Tartous, du gouvernorat d’Al-Sweida et de la capitale ont la fécondité la plus basse. / According to the results of the last demographic survey representative at the national level, the total fertility rate of Syria was 3.5 children per woman in 2009. It exceeds about 1.5 children the replacement level, estimated at 2.1 children per woman. The evolution of the Syrian fertility has experienced several phases; the first was when fertility reached "world records" and resisted any change, then a phase of rapid decline in the mid-1980s, followed by a phase of slow decrease or a phase of quasi-stagnation of fertility in the early 2000s until today. If rapid fertility decline was triggered by economic difficulties related to the crisis of the 1980s, its recent stagnation is, at least in part, related to religious precepts and cultural factors that are barriers to fertility decline below a certain level. This is confirmed by the "geographic pattern" of fertility which persists over time, the populations of North East governorates, Deir ez-Zor, Al-Hassakeh and Al-Rakka and the two governorates of southern borders Al-Quneitra and Dar'a, record the highest fertility; while populations of coastal governorates, Latakia and Tartous Governorate of Al-Sweida and the capital have the lowest fertility.