Dr Associate Professor

Background: Most women do not desire pregnancy immediately after delivery and are highly motivated to accept family planning methods. The post partum intrauterine device is one of the family planning methods that can address this need. According to prior reports intrauterine device use has been very low from the contraceptive method mix. Objective: To assess barriers to postpartum intra uterine device uptake among mothers who delivered at two public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Method: It is an institution based cross-sectional study.  Simple random sampling method was used to select study participants. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis were used to determine the presence and strength of association between uptake of post partum intrauterine device and independent variables. Result: In this study the uptake of postpartum intrauterine contraceptive device was 11% (95%CI=8.0, 14). The stated barriers for the none uptake of post partum intrauterine device were fear and concern (61.6%), religions value for family planning (16.9%), husband and relative opinion (7%), culture norm (5%) and health provider related factor (5% (17/367)). Parity and mode of delivery were significantly associated post partum intrauterine device uptake. The odds of intrauterine contraceptive device utilization for mothers with previous number of deliveries of ?3 and 1-2 were 35 (AOR=34.8, 95%CI=7.33, 165.4) and 4 (AOR=4.2, 95%CI=1.47, 12.07) times higher than those with no previous delivery. In addition, assisted vaginal delivery had 11 (AOR=11.06, 95%CI=3.26, 37.5) times increased odds of intrauterine contraceptive device uptake than SVD. Conclusion and recommendations: The uptake of post partum intrauterine device was low (11%). The main barriers identified for the low uptake were fear and concern to myth and misconceptions, religions value for family planning, husband and relative opinion, culture norm and health provider related factors. To identify and address reasons for gaps in knowledge and to clear public misconceptions and fears further large scale studies are recommended. Key-words: PPIUD, Contraception, post partum, Ethiopia.