Sexual networking among married men with wives of child bearing age in Ibadan city, Nigeria: report of a pilot study

Abstract

Following the Beijing Conference, it is desirable to em power men to play a more activc and responsive role in promoting the health of family members and preventing disease. This cross sectional, community-based, ex-post factor, pilot study was designed to find out if traditional norms affect marital sexuality and also to identify socio demographic factors associated with sexual networking among men. A total of 416 married men whose wives had delivered a baby in the last 36 months prior to the study were interviewed from randomly selected clusters in Ibadan, Nigeria. Of this number, the majority 336(80.8%) had sex with pregnant wife in the last pregnancy and proportion of married men who had sex in the pregnancy with wives reduced modestly with increasing age of the men. With regards to sexual networking in pregnancy, 207 (49.8%) men reported having sex with someone else when wife was pregnant. Of this number 95(45.9%) had it with steady girl friends, 56(27.0%) with new girl friends, 50(24.2%) with another wife and 6(2.9%) with commercial sex workers. The prevalence for having sex with someone else in this period was lower in men from the higher socio-economic class (MSEC) when compared with the lower socio-cconomic class(LSECKx: =9.89, /M).001). The middle socio-economic class also had a lower rate than the lower socio-cconomic class (x: =6.28, P<0.01). In addition, men with post second ary/University education had significantlyiower rates for networking when their wives were pregnant compared with men of lower educational attainment (P<0.05). Three hun dred and eleven men (74.8%) reported that they observed some period of postpartum abstinence (PPA) with recently delivered wife, which ranged from 5 days to 72 months (Median was 7.5 months). The highest PPA rates were seen in men with no formal education, those from lower SEC and in men who embraced traditional religions. Issues that have to be addressed in more detail in the follow up study include understanding why men network as tradi tional proscriptions are generally not adhered to. Deter mining the relationship between length of postpartum ab stinence and sexual networking and implication of this behaviour in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and fertility control if postpartum abstinence period is significantly reduced or increased. In this regard, qualitative research as well as quantitative research should be carried out so that the entire study is not left within the realm of a quantitative study, which may be inadequate for explaining social and demographic data.