CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – As Catholic church leaders and legislators debate over the reproductive health bill, couples in Central Luzon appeared to favor more the use of modern than natural forms of family planning.
There has been a decline in the use of oral contraceptive pills from 50.56 percent in 2006 to 46.96 percent in 2007 but these continued to be the first method of choice, data obtained from the Department of Health’s field health service information system in seven provinces and 12 cities.
The second most popular method—injectable contraceptive, which is done once every three months—also saw a declining number of users from 19.21 percent in 2006 to 16.62 percent in 2007.
More men went for the vasectomy, which sharply rose from 0.05 percent in 2006 to 13 percent last year.
An increasing number of women, from 11.77 percent to 15.03 percent, resorted to tubal ligation.
Breastfeeding right after birth, or lactational amenorrhea, to be able to delay the return of a woman’s fertile period has become more popular, with users rising from 7.23 percent to 9.36 percent.
Condom and IUD usage were recorded at 5.36 percent and 4.83 percent, respectively.
The usage of other forms of natural family planning like cervical mucus, standard days, basal body temperature and sympto-thermal methods stood only at 1.72 percent last year.
Rosa Fortaleza, regional director of the Commission on Population, an agency under the DOH, said these data did not include information gathered by non-government organizations and private hospitals.
For every 100 woman in Central Luzon, the contraceptive prevalence rate reached 24.2 percent in 1997, 54.9 percent in 2002 and 58.9 percent in 2006, Fortaleza said. PopCom is raising the target to 66.1 percent in 2010.
The growth rate in the region (population: 9.720 million as of 2007) also fell at 2.36 percent from 2000 to 2007 from 3.17 percent in 1995 to 2000, she said.
More couples have decided to have less children, she said to explain the decline in growth rate.
The PopCom has no inventory of local governments that have actually been funding the purchases of contraceptives after the USAID ceased implementing its maternal and children program in the Philippines in 2006.
Fortaleza said Angeles City and the City of San Fernando in Pampanga and the province of Aurora and Bulacan have their respective reproductive health programs that promote natural and modern family planning methods
