Background: Postpartum family planning (PPFP) promotes safe motherhood by preventing unplanned repeat pregnancies and making sure there is enough time between pregnancies. However, there is a limited amount of information on how parental dialogue affects the number of adolescent mothers who use PPFP. The point of this study was to find out how parental dialogues affected the use of PPFP among first-time adolescent mothers in the South Central area of Uganda.

Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was carried out between 2021 and 2023 in two sub-counties of Rakai District in the South Central region of Uganda. We extracted and analyzed a dataset of adolescent first-time mothers aged 10-19 who were permanent residents, had a baby under 2 years old at the time of parental dialogue. Chi-square or Fisher’s exact for categorical data and t-tests for numerical data at 5% significance were used to examine differences between firsttime mothers’ utilization of PPFP after attending parental dialogues. Bivariate and multivariable analyses were performed to identify the effect of parental dialogues on PPFP uptake and predictors for PPFP uptake.

Results: Of the 293 Adolescent first-time mothers, 219 (74.4%) were cohabiting/in-union, 201 (57.9%) attended postprimary education, 189 (64.5%) attended parental dialogues well, and 248 (84.6%) had never used any family planning, and 256 (87.37%) individuals attended all four PNC visits. Implant 3 years and Injectables had 45 (18.9%) users, followed by Implant 5 years with 30 (12.6%) postpartum users. 48.8% of cohabiting/in-union adolescent mothers used PPFPs. Adolescent first-time mothers who attended at least one parental dialogue were 2.6 and 2.7 times more likely to use injectable and 5-year implants in the postpartum period respectively. Early middle adolescent first-time mothers were 2.5 times more likely to use PPFM. Adolescent first-time mothers who cohabitated/were in a union were 4.4 times more likely to use PPFP.

Conclusion: Parental discussions enhance the probability of early adolescent first-time mothers in a union relationship to use a postpartum family planning method, with the 5-year implant and injectables being three times more preferred than other methods………… recommendation.