Normative and Other Factors Affecting Family Planning: Themes and Exemplary Quotes
| Theme | Illustrative Quotes |
|---|---|
| Norms around birth spacing | It’s always good to have children who don’t follow each other, that we don’t conceive while the other is still little. Because if you can conceive early for a child, it can cause you to suffer a lot; when he will be always sick, today, sick tomorrow…you will only spend money. —Man, Kasaï Central |
| Knowledge of family planning methods | To avoid the woman conceiving while the child is still too young, you can abstain from lying with your wife, or you buy condoms; if you don’t want to buy condoms, you can bring the wife there to the hospital, get an [intrauterine device]. —Man, Kasaï Central |
| Benefits of birth spacing methods | Since the woman has seen that her child is 6 months, instead of having the pregnancies close together and causing her child to suffer, she prefers to use a method so that her child will grow up well. —Man, Kasaï Central |
| Concerns about modern family planning methods |
My friend came to show me the facts of his wife, who they gave the injection, and that hurt, it really had a bad effect, a lot of hemorrhaging, hemorrhaging that lasted a month. —Man, Kasaï Central] He must know the methods favoring the woman to engage in prostitution, that is to say that for the man when the woman takes a method, for him the woman will no longer be afraid of engaging in prostitution. —Man, Sankuru They refuse because the woman can choose a method that lasts many days, many years. They want it to be fewer years. —Woman, Lualaba |
| Gender norms | If she goes alone to the health center to get the [contraceptive method], there it’s as if she is a free woman or as if she is the authority in her household…it’s as if her husband has become the wife and she the wife has become the husband. —Man, Kasaï Central |
| Reference groups | There are 2 types of friends. There’s a friend and a close friend. He could have spoken with his close friends, those who he says, night or day, I must talk to them. Those friends, he can tell, sometimes they say, “Don’t do that” and he really listens to their advice. —Man, Kasaï Central |
| Sources of information | Because the woman understands, we give advice, she retains it; or her friends can tell her, or her grandparents; it’s that that she retains and comes to speak to the man, to see how to avoid early pregnancy while the children are still young. —Man, Kasaï Central |
| Sanctions for those who act contrary to social norms | The man can think of taking another wife. Since he sees that his wife has become difficult, he can think about taking another wife. —Nurse, Sankuru |