Acceptance of birth spacing methods and it’s determinants among postnatal women in a tertiary care setting from Kerala

Background: According to VISION FP2020 healthy birth spacing is defined as delaying the first birth by two years and maintaining the birth interval of at least three years between the two children with the help of various contraceptives.Methods: This was a hospital based cross sectional study conducted among primiparous postnatal women in the department of obstetrics and gynecology SAT hospital, Trivandrum for one year duration. 134 women who had their first delivery were included in this study. A semi structured questionnaire was used to study the sociodemographic variables, reproductive history, contraceptive knowledge, attitude towards contraception and intention to use birth spacing methods by interview technique.Results: The acceptance of birth spacing methods among the study population was 56.8%. 59.1% opted to use family planning methods 6 weeks after delivery while 40.9% planned to use after 6 months. Determinants which were significantly associated with acceptance of family planning methods were education of wife (p<0.01), husbands’ education, socioeconomic status, religion and contraceptive awareness (p<0.01). 47.1% of women preferred DMPA injections, 39.1% opted for intrauterine devices. 13.8% of women opted for condom. Convenience, long term protection, and ease of use were the important reasons cited. The reasons for non-acceptance included fear of side effects, spouse not staying together, opposition from husbands, lack of awareness and religious restrictions.Conclusions: Female literacy, accessibility, cafeteria approach, and counselling contributed to acceptance. If the availability and awareness of injectable contraceptives is made at all the points of health delivery system, the acceptance of birth spacing can further be increased and unplanned pregnancies avoided

Lidar Observations of aerosol layers just below the tropopause level during IFP-INDOEX

A lidar system has been used at Gadanki (13.5º, 79.2ºE) to study the characteristics of aerosol layer (cloud) occurring just below the tropical tropopause. The preliminary results of the lidar observations indicate that the cloud occurs ~ 2 km below the tropopause. The top and bottom edges of the cloud have propensity for ice crystal presence with liquid droplets/ vapours in-between. The clouds show temporal fluctuations (in their backscattering ratio) with temporal scales of the order of 30–90 min

Thin aerosol clouds at tropopause level

Aerosol clouds about 2 km below the tropopause are studied using the data from lidar and MST radar at Gadanki. The cloud shows fluctuations with time scales as short as 1/2 h in the backscatter ratio. Depolarization factor indicates ice crystal formation when the cloud is strong. The MST radar wind data show strong turbulence below the cloud level indicating, probably, turbulent mixing/transport of water vapor from lower heights to cloud heights facilitating cloud formation

Thin aerosol clouds at tropopause level

245-248Aerosol clouds about 2 km below the tropopause are studied using the data from lidar and MST radar at Gadanki. The cloud shows fluctuations with time scales as short as 1/2 h in the backscatter ratio. Depolarization factor indicates ice crystal formation when the cloud is strong. The MST radar wind data show strong turbulence below the cloud level indicating, probably, turbulent mixing /transport of water vapour from lower heights to cloud heights facilitating cloud formation

A study of equatorial wave characteristics using rockets, balloons, lidar and radar

A co-ordmated experimental campaign was conducted for 40 consecutive days from 21 February to 01 April 2000 using RH-200 rockets, balloons, Rayleigh lidar and MST radar, with the objective of delineating the equatorial waves and estimating momentum fluxes associated with them. Winds and temperatures in the troposphere, stratosphere and mesosphere over two low latitude stations Gadanki (13.5&#176;N, 79.2&#176;E) and SHAR (13.7&#176;N, 80.2&#176;E) were measured and were used for the study of equatorial waves and their interactions with the background mean flow in various atmospheric regions. The study shows the occurrence of a strong stratospheric cooling (<SUP>~</SUP>25 K) anomaly along with a zonal wind anomaly and this low-latitude event appears to be linked to high-latitude stratospheric warming event and followed by subsequent generation of short period (<SUP>~</SUP>5 days) oscillations lasting for a few cycles in the stratosphere. Slow and fast Kelvin waves and RG wave (<SUP>~</SUP>-17-day and <SUP>~</SUP>7.2-day and <SUP>~</SUP>4.2-day periods respectively) have been identified. The mean flow acceleration produced by the divergence of the momentum flux due to the observed Kelvin waves in the 35-60 km height region were compared with the zonal flow accelerations computed from the observed zonal winds. Contribution by the slow and fast Kelvin waves was found to be only <SUP>~</SUP>25 % of the observed acceleration during the evolution of the westerly phase of the semi-annual oscillation