The purpose of this study was to describe and assess certified nurse-midwives’ (CNMs) knowledge and promotion of two modalities for child spacing, natural family-planning (NFP) and the lactational amenorrhea method (LAM). One thousand two hundred CNMs were randomly selected from a national membership list and mailed a 24-item questionnaire on NFP and LAM. Of the 514 respondents (42.8% return rate), 450 (87.5%) were currently practicing as CNMs. Respondents had an average age of 46 years, with an average of 10 years of practice. CNMs ranked NFP as the ninth most used and the eighth most effective family-planning method in their practice, with an average perceived method-effectiveness of 88% and use-effectiveness of 70%. Although most respondents felt somewhat prepared during their education program to provide NFP, only 22% would offer NFP as a family-planning option for child spacing.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/richard_fehring/80/
Accepted version. Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health, Vol.46, No. 2 (March-April 2001): 68-73. DOI. © 2001 Wiley. Used with permission.
NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health, VOL 46, ISSUE 2, (March-April 2001) DOI.