Family planning and contraception practices of Maltese women

Abstract

Family planning allows for women and girls to plan, time and space their children. All around the globe family planning policies and modern contraception methods have changed millions of women’s and girls’ lives. Most women spend around 40 years of their lives trying to control their fertility. Although family planning was confirmed as a human right at various international conventions and forms an integral part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, Malta still has no family planning policy and no statistics or data on the current family planning and birth control customs of its people. This quantitative study set out to document the current contraception and family planning practices of Maltese persons assigned female at birth. The aim was to also check for associations between socio-economic factors and contraception practices, and to discuss potential links between contraception use and pregnancy outcomes among Maltese persons assigned female at birth. The literature reviewed for this study focused on the way education, income, relationship status and religious beliefs impact the contraception choices of women. It also elaborated on how unplanned pregnancies, even when wanted, can have various long-term repercussions for mother, baby, the family, and the rest of society. It further highlighted how effective policies to be fair and equitable need to keep human rights and reproductive justice principles at their core because various complex societal and cultural issues interact and may affect women’s contraception decisions. This study provides previously unavailable insights into the reproductive choices, the number of births, miscarriages, and abortions of over 2000 Maltese women. The data for this study was collected through an anonymised survey which was posted on social media between February and March 2022. This questionnaire garnered over 2500 responses, mostly from women with a tertiary level of education. 76% of participants confirmed they are currently using some form of contraception. However, most respondents use the more unreliable methods like withdrawal and condoms, and this could explain the high number of unintended pregnancies reported. Unplanned pregnancies are the result of lack of contraception use, inconsistent use or due to contraception failure. Only just over a quarter of respondents use the more reliable modern methods of contraception such as the oral contraceptive pill and intrauterine devices. Besides being more reliable, these methods allow women to be more in control of their fertility. This study concluded that Malta needs a robust family planning policy and to conduct well-funded, professionally designed national research on family planning More studies are needed to investigate further the numbers presented in this study.