Background: Today, many of women need to delay their conception and use effective and reversible contraceptive methods. On the other hand, pregnancy and delivery in old women cause maternal and child mortality and morbidity. So the author studied the status of contraception and its related factors in over 35-year old women.

Materials and Methods: In this cross- sectional study 700 women with folders in the health centers were selected randomly. All subjects had menstrual period without any disease causing contraindication to use contraception. The women were interviewed in clinics and their contraception was assessed. Then related factors [parity, BMI, the age of women (now, on last delivery, on marriage time), duration of marriage, the number and sex of babies, prior contraception, regulation of menstruation and male and female sexual satisfaction] were measured with a questionnaire. Condom, OCP, DMPA, IUD, tubectomy and vasectomy were considered as effective methods while interrupts and without CP were considered as noneffective methods. Finally, women were contrasted as being in effective or non effective contraception (CP) method.

Results: The results showed 688 women (98/3%) used contraception (495women had effective and 193 women non effective CP) and 12 (1/7%) did not use CP. Condom (28/3%), interruption (27/6%) and tubectomy (20%) were the most used CP and the lowest used one was in DMPA (%1) and vasectomy (5%). There was a significant difference between women with and without effective contraception method in: the mean age of marriage (p=0/002), duration of marriage (p=0/006), menstrual cycle (p=0/03), BMI (p=0/008), parity (p=0/00), number of babies (son girl) (P<0/05), the sex of babies (p=0/00), prior contraception method (p=0/00) and female sexual satisfaction (p=0/09).

Conclusion: Most of the women after 35 years old had felt the need to use contraception but the age had no positive effect on the selection of the effective contraception. Having baby is more important for women than pregnancy in high risk age. It is suggested to educate people about suitable age for pregnancy, marriage and the number of babies and the last but not least effective reversible contraception.