Birth Control to Improve Birth Spacing – BIBS

Health birth spacing promotes the physical, mental, and social wellbeing of families. Spacing births less than 18 months apart is associated with a cariety of adverse health outcomes including maternal and infant mortality, premature and stillbirth, and low birth weight. While effects maybe moderated by maternal age and parity, short interpregnancy interval has been associate with poorer outcomes for all demographic groups. For this reason, leading clinical and public health organizations agree that increasing healthy birth spacing constitutes an urgent individual and population health goal, and the National Institute of Child Health and Development has created the Notice of Special Interest: Research to Improve Pre-Pregnancy Care and Enhance Health Birth Intervals.

Very effective contraception (VEC) defined as all methods with a typical use failre under 10% and including the pill, patch, ring, injection, implant, intrauterine devices (IUD), and sterilization – constitues the most popular contraceptive methods in the US. To ensure health birth spacing, it is critical that individuals receive VEC by the end of the “fourth trimester”, the 12- week period of enhanced postpartum follow-up promoted by clinical experts.

The specific objective of this study is to investigate the drivers of postpartum contraceptive use.

With a prospective cohort, the hope is to clarify the role of contraceptive knowledge, attitudes, norms, and self-efficacy in driving intention to initiate very effective contraception (VEC) postpartum through baseline patient survey data, with additional domains around (1) birth spacing, (2) breastfeeding, and (3) physical recovery.
Describe the imapct of environmental barriers on enacting intended postpartum VEC initiation through electronic medical record (EMR) review and interviews exploring (1) insurance, (2) provider type, and (3) day and time of delivery, in addition to social and structural barriers.

Participation in the baseline survey will include an invitation to participate in the second follow-up survey at 12 weeks postpartum. Both surveys will be self-admnistered. Participation in the qualitative interview will consist of a brief scheduling conversation, followed by an hour Zoom video interview.

Want more information about this study? Call the BEACON Research Team at 617-383-3500 or email us at dg-infofp@bmc.org.

OB/GYN Clinic, Yawkey Ambulatory Care Center, 5th Floor, Boston Medical Center, 850 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
⌨ dg-infofp@bmc.org | ☏ 617-383-3500