Meeting the Sexual and Reproductive Health Needs of Young Married Women and First-time Parents Toolkit
Young married women (YMWs) and first-time parents (FTPs) face a unique set of challenges to living healthy sexual and reproductive lives—challenges that are different to those faced by unmarried adolescents, older married women or older parents.
To contribute to meeting the needs of YMW and FTPs, Pathfinder International, in collaboration with its Evidence to Action (E2A) project, developed this toolkit, which brings together tools and resources that support program development and implementation. The toolkit includes:
- Publications that supply evidence and programmatic experience, which can inform intervention design or be used in advocacy activities
- Curricula and guidance developed for health providers, community health workers, and small group leaders who are involved in programs targeting YMW and FTPs
- Behavior and social norm change tools, guidance for implementers, and service delivery tools.
The materials in the toolkit address a range of topics relevant to meeting the needs of FTPs and YMW, such as: contraception, healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy (HTSP), couples' communication and building healthy relationships, maternal and newborn health, gender equality, gender-based violence (GBV), HIV prevention, and lifeskills.
Some of the materials in the toolkit were designed for specific regions or countries (e.g., Uganda, francophone West Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Nepal, Malawi, India, and Madagascar), whereas others are global. All can be adapted to meet the needs of the user’s specific context.
The materials included focus explicitly on young married women and/or first-time parents.

- Scaling-Up First-Time and Young Parent Access to Postpartum Family Planning: Could Small Shifts Change the Game?
- Lessons Learned from an Integrated Approach for Reaching First-time Young Parents in Nigeria
- First Time Parents
- Evidence to Action (E2A) Project's First-Time Parent Framework
- Training Tools: Providing Family Planning and Reproductive Health to Young Married Women and First-Time Parents in West Africa
- Beyond the ABCs of FTPs: A Deep Dive into Emerging Considerations for First Time Parent Programs
- Factors Impacting Use of Health Services by First-time/Young parents: A Formative Research Toolkit
- “Because my Husband and I Have Never Had a Baby Before…” Results and Lessons from Interventions with First-Time Parents in Madagascar, Mozambique, and Nigeria
- Reaching the Youngest Moms and Dads: A Socio-Ecological View of Actors and Factors Influencing First-time Young Parents’ Use of Sexual and Reproductive Health Services in Madagascar
- Connect: Increasing Use of Pospartum Family Planning by First-Time Parents
- Improving Family Planning Outcomes for First-Time Parents in the Greater Mahale Ecosystem of Tanzania (Brief)
- Reaching Young Married Women & First-Time Parents for Healthy Timing and Spacing of Pregnancies
- Addressing Reproductive, Maternal, and Child Health and Family Planning Needs of Young, First-Time Parents in the Eastern Region of Burkina Faso
- Our First Baby: Health Education for Adolescents Who are Pregnant or First-Time Parents
- Interventions to Reach Married Adolescents for Increased Contraceptive Use in Niger
June 11, 2020