A survey conducted in Kisumu shows that there is significant demand for long-acting contraceptive methods especially among married women.
The study released on Wednesday also showed an increase in usage among women from poor backgrounds, signifying that uptake of modern family planning could be higher where access is guaranteed.
The four-year household survey was done among women aged 15-49 by the Measurement, Learning and Evaluation project in 2014 to examine the impact of the Kenya Urban Reproductive Health Initiative, popularly known as Tupange.
Tupange was implemented in Nairobi, Machakos, Kisumu, Kakamega and Mombasa to increase contraceptive use among the poor urban populations.
Nelson Keyonzo, Tupange Project director said among women aged 15 to 49, use of modern contraceptives at the end of study rose from 44 per cent to 59 per cent.
A discouraging finding was that 13 per cent of those who had reported using contraceptives at the beginning of the research said they had discontinued, he said.
However, among the poorest who were the major programme targets, the number of users more than doubled.
The urban poor are usually unreached by many health services, including family planning.
“One consequence is that poor women have over 40 per cent more children than they desire while rich women are able to have exactly the number they desire,” Keyonzo said.
He added; “Following the Tupange programme interventions, facilities reported less stock-out of the contraceptives in public and private facilities in Kisumu.”
“Some of our interventions to improve commodity management systems included training of personnel, an SMS-based ordering system, and re-distribution of methods between facilities,” Keyonzo said.
Tupange sought to integrate high-quality family planning services with maternal and new-born services, and to improve the overall quality and uptake of FP services.
The popular long term contraceptives in Kisumu included the intra-uterine device, implants, female and male sterilisation.
“The increase in long-acting reversible method (LARC) use, particularly implants, indicates that there was latent demand for long-acting methods,” Keyonzo noted.
Kenya’s contraceptive prevalence rate has gone from 48 in 2008 to 58 per cent in 2014 and the average number of children has dropped from 4.6 to 3.9, lowest ever recorded.
He said due to low use of contraceptives there is still a gap between actual and desired family size, meaning people are still having more children than they would like.
With a third of Kenyans now living in urban areas, demand for services such health, education, employment, housing and transportation is already reaching crisis levels, and experts agree that family planning is one of the most cost-effective interventions.