Fertility and modern family planning in rural southwestern Nigeria.

This paper describes the role of modern family planning rural southwestern Nigeria. Traditional means of deliberate family planning or childspacing are a part of the Yoruba culture. The effects on this tradition of modernization and westernization are analyzed. The data presented were drawn from a survey of women from 4 regions of Oyo State conducted by the University of Ibadan and administrered to 1990 women aged 15 to 50 who currently had a child under the age of 5. The Yoruba woman typically marries by age 20 begins childbearing immediately and continues to have children into her 40s. By age 45 the women interviewed had given birth to an average of 7.34 children. While the overall fertility is high it is much below the biological maximum of 12 to 14 children. Deliberate spacing of pregnancies is practices through postpartum abstinence typically 2 to 3 years for the traditional village women. Postpartum practices are changing with the advent of westernization urbanization and education. The period of abstinence is shortening. A significant interest in family planning was found though awareness of modern methods was low and the availability of services was minimal or nonexistent. Interest in childspacing is found among all ages and parity levels though more interest in postponing the next birth is found among women over 35 or among those with 5 or more children. Interest in postponing the next birth is strongly positively correlated with education. Actual use of modern family planning lags far behind expressed desires. For the entire sample 2.5% have ever used contraception. The most used methods are the oral pill followed by Depo-prover injection and the IUD. The lack of family planning services and education in rural areas partly explains the low level of use of contraception. Attitudes toward modern family planning are generally negative (only 25% of the sample approved of it). Sex is viewed as basically for the purpose of producing children and is otherwise immoral.