Factors Influencing Fertility Choices Among HIV Infected Mothers in Uasin Gishu District, Kenya

Abstract

Kenya has borne the major brunt of HIV/AIDS for close to two decades. The problem being exacerbated amongchildbearing mothers as the probability of giving birth to HIV infected baby is heightened. Availability of safe andeffective contraceptive and high quality reproductive health counseling can help a woman practice safer sex anddetermine her future childbearing on a more responsible and informed basis. Therefore, a study to determine howknowledge on contraceptives influenced fertility choices was conducted in Uasin Gishu district Rift valley provincein Kenya from September 2005 to December 2005. Data was collected by systematic random sampling from 400HIV infected mothers in their reproductive age. Interview schedules were administered to the respondents at threesites. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistics. Knowledge on contraceptive was almost universal among therespondents with 99.0% of the respondents being aware of at least one method that women could use to avoidpregnancy. Majority (41.6%) knew at least three methods of family planning followed by 30.4% who knew at leastfour methods while few respondents (3.5%) knew more than six methods of family planning. Desire for additionalchildren was found to increase markedly with the number of methods that respondents were knowledgeable about;none of the respondents who were knowledgeable about one method desired to get any more additional childrenwhereas 30.5% of those who knew at least three methods desired to get additional children. However, desire foradditional births reduced drastically among those who knew more than four family planning methods with noneof those who knew six methods desiring to get additional children. It is seen from the study that it is only withadequate knowledge regarding family planning that one is able to adopt better family planning practices. It is thusrecommended that reproductive health counseling be improved among the HIV infected mother.