The natural family planning programme in Bangladesh.

A 12-month evaluation of the Ovulation Method of Natural Family Planning programme in Bangladesh is presented. Four hundred and forty-eight women entered the programme, 232 for spacing, 184 for limiting, and 32 to achieve pregnancy. Of the participating couples, 79% lived in rural areas and 20.3% were illiterate. The 416 who learned the ovulation method for avoiding pregnancy completed 2,358 months of use, with 14 unplanned pregnancies during the study period, which represents a pregnancy rate of 7.2 according to the Pearl Index. The discontinuation rate in the 12-month period was 2.4%.