Mapping Health Care Providers' Roles in Contraceptive Counseling.

Belgium ranks among the best-performing European countries in terms of access to contraceptive counselling, online information, and compulsory health insurance coverage. In theory, this should enable individuals to identify and use a contraceptive method suited to their needs. Yet, one in four pregnancies in Flanders remains unintended, while sexually transmitted infections are on the rise. This discrepancy underscores the need for a more in-depth analysis of how contraceptive decision-making and care are structured. Existing evidence suggests that even in contexts with strong policies, reproductive coercion and limitations persist, often reflecting a narrow biomedical script that prioritizes hormonal methods. Addressing these challenges is integral to achieving reproductive justice, understood as the right to bodily and reproductive autonomy, including the right to have or not have children and to raise them in safe communities. This SEP project therefore explores the role of health care providers (HCPs) in the initiation and follow-up of contraceptives in Flanders. Using qualitative data, it examines which types of providers are most involved in contraceptive trajectories, the motives underlying women's choice of a specific provider, and the meanings they attach to these encounters. By deliberately moving beyond the first line of care, the study focuses not only on general practitioners but also on gynecologists, midwives, and dermatologists. Comparing and contrasting these providers allows us to investigate how professional boundaries, resources, and counselling styles shape women's opportunities to exercise agency in their contraceptive choices. In doing so, the project advances our understanding of reproductive empowerment within a context of growing societal diversity and shifting contraceptive preferences.

Keywords:HEALTH CARE, CONTRACEPTIVE TRAJECTORIES

Disciplines:Social medical sciences not elsewhere classified