Objective: To assess the level of awareness and correlates of use of family planning services among sexually active breastfeeding mothers attending an infant welfare clinic.
Design: Cross-sectional descriptive design.
Setting: Infant welfare clinic of the urban comprehensive health centre, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
Subjects: Mothers of breast feeding infants aged 8-11 months attending the infant welfare clinic.
Results: Awareness of family planning was quite high (95.5%) while current family planning use was quite low (13%). Although the proportion of women who planned for future use of family planning in the sample was high (64%), all current non-users (86.6%) met the criteria for unmet need for family planning. Parity and the number of living children were the only socio-demographic correlates of the respondents that significantly influenced family planning acceptance (P < 0.05).
Conclusion: There is a high level of contraceptive awareness but low contraceptive use among breast feeding mothers in Nigeria, with a majority of non-users depending on the perceived contraceptive effects of breastfeeding.