Family Planning and Its Association with Nutritional Status of Women: Investigation in Select South Asian Countries

Abstract

Family planning allows couples to anticipate and attain their desired number of children and the timing and spacing of their births. Integration of family planning services in undernutrition elimination programmes is one way to reduce undernutrition in developing countries. In this backdrop, this study assessed the association of women’s nutritional status and family planning, considering the intersectional axes of the timing, spacing and limiting of births as a proxy indicator of family planning. The study used the recent Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from four South Asian countries (namely, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan) which exhibit prevalence of high malnutrition levels, poor family planning, huge adolescent fertility and shorter birth intervals among women. Along with descriptive and bivariate statistics, multinomial logistic regressions ( mlogit) and Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA) conversion models were used to estimate the adjusted percentage of nutritional outcomes by selected independent factors. The results reveal that women’s nutritional status has significant relationship with planning of births. Overall, the findings suggest that planning for timing, spacing and limiting of births can promote better nutritional status in women.