Many women worried about contraceptives' side-effects

Many women worried about contraceptives' side-effects

JAKARTA (JP): More and more women in Indonesia have stopped using contraception because they are apprehensive about the side-effects of contraceptives on their health, according to a survey published yesterday.

The 1994 Demographic and Health Survey by the Central Bureau of Statistics found that one in four women of child-bearing age decided to go off contraceptives for this reason.

The figure was only 2.2 percent in the 1987 survey and 11.2 percent in 1991, Antara reported, quoting the bureau's chief of demography and manpower statistics, Toto E. Sastrasuanda.

Speaking at a seminar to disseminate the survey's results, Toto said most of the women who went off family planning did so within a year. Among the reasons cited for quitting family planning were failures of contraceptives, prices and supply shortage.

The survey involved 28,168 women aged between 15 and 49 years old and was conducted between July and November of 1994. The project was conducted jointly by the National Family Planning Agency, the Ministry of Health and Maryland-based Macro International. It was funded by the Indonesian government, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank.

Toto said the survey's result shows that there is a need to strengthen family planning counseling in terms of the choice of contraceptives, care and services.

Meanwhile, Kusnadi Satjawinata, a staff of the National Family Planning Agency, told the seminar that as many as 18 percent of those survey stopped practicing family planning because they wanted to conceive again. In 1987 survey, the rate was 24, percent and in 1991 it was 28.7 percent.

The survey also found that only 38 percent of the respondents said they had heard of AIDS and 20 percent knew that there was no cure for the disease, Antara reported.

Those who had heard of the disease said they learned mostly from television rather than radio or newspapers.

Twenty percent of the respondents said the way to avoid contracting the disease is to stick to one sexual partner while 23 percent said men should stay away from prostitutes. (emb)