Background: Unmet need for family planning (FP), which refers to the condition in which there is the desire to avoid or post-pone child bearing, without the use of any means of contraception, has been a core concept in the field of international population for more than three decades. The concept of unmet need points to the gap between these women's reproductive intentions and contraceptive behaviour. The sum of the unmet need for limiting and the unmet need for spacing is the unmet need for family planning. NFHS III showed that there is 22% of overall unmet need of family planning. The reasons are multiple to not to use the contraceptive methods. These reasons need to be attended.

Background: Use of family planning methods are influenced by a variety of interrelated factors such as age at marriage, education, economic status, religion, number of living children etc. An endeavour has been made to assess these factors for acceptance of various contraceptive methods among women, in a rural area of Maharashtra.