ArticleFrontiers in reproductive health2026
From fertility intentions to contraceptive behaviour: evidence among women with children in Malawi.
Article in Frontiers in reproductive health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Although fertility has declined in Malawi, a substantial gap persists between women's fertility-limiting intentions and contraceptive behaviour. Previous studies often include childless women, potentially obscuring patterns among women who have already entered parenthood. This study examines fertility preferences and contraceptive behaviour among in-union women with at least one living child in Malawi. Methods: We analysed cross-sectional data from the 2015-16 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey. The fertility intention analysis included 15,866 married or in-union women aged 15-49 years with at least one living child. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to estimate adjusted average marginal effects (AMEs) for wanting another child and being undecided (reference: wants no more children). A sub-sample of women with limiting demand ( Results: Overall, 49.8% of women reported wanting no more children, while 44.7% desired additional children. The likelihood of wanting another child declined markedly with age (AME = -0.308 among women aged 35-49 years) and parity (AME = -0.504 among women with four or more children). Muslim women were more likely to desire additional children (AME = 0.053). Among women with limiting demand, 72.4% used modern contraception, 25.4% used no method, and 2.2% relied on traditional methods. Modern method use was positively associated with higher parity, primary and secondary education, employment, urban residence, and residence in the Central and Southern regions, while older age and Muslim religion were negatively associated. Side effects (37.4%) were the leading reason for discontinuation of modern methods. Conclusions: In Malawi, fertility preferences strongly reflect parity and age, yet a substantial proportion of women with limiting demand remain non-users of contraception. Reducing unmet need requires strengthening access, method continuation support, and regionally responsive family planning strategies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.