Contraception, unintended pregnancy and induced abortion

The poor reproductive health among women is the outcome of prevailing unintended fertility due to lack of family planning practices at the time of need. The present study aims to address this issue in the State of Odisha, India. Odisha with strong concentration of tribal population has moderate fertility but very high infant, child and maternal mortality in India. The paper examines the variation in unmet need among women of the said population. It uses data from three rounds of India’s the National Family Survey (NFHS-1, NFHS-2 & NFHS-3). Multinomial logistic regression (m-log) models and GIS have been used to analyze the data. The study reveals that the programme should look into the unmet need of women who are young, lower parity, illiterate, non-working, lower standard of living and poor inter-spouse communication about family planning in order to address the unmet need for family planning, maternal and child health among the population.

Unintended pregnancies are prone to health risks not only mother but also to the child. These risks may turn to be fatal and life long. Therefore, planned parenthood is advocated in all the health initiatives. The studies have shown that the share of unintended pregnancies crossed 40 percent in some setting of developing countries. Thus, this paper aims to examine the level of unintended in the four South Asian countries, namely Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, and its consequence for mother and child health. Preliminary findings of this study show that the share of unintended pregnancies ranges between 24% in India to 37% in Nepal. Unintended pregnancies are less likely to receive Antenatal care as well to be delivered in institutional settings in these countries. Similarly, unwanted births were in disadvantageous state of immunization, breastfeeding and growth. The final version of the paper will carry immediate policy recommendations on the issue.

Efforts made to improve the availability and access to adolescent sexual and reproductive health services have not yielded the expected results and the Kintampo Health and Demographic Surveillance System (KHDSS) area is no exception. This study seeks to explore the intentions and preferences for contraceptives among adolescents in rural Ghana and examines differences and determinants of intentions and preferences observed to make contributions towards meeting MDG 5b which is described as the most off-track of all MDGs. The source of data is a survey and the KHDSS database. The outcome variable is the intention and/or willingness of adolescents to use contraceptives and the explanatory variables are demographic and socio-economic factors. Descriptive and multivariate analysis were done using STATA 11.1. The expected findings are level of adolescents’ willingness for contraceptive use, most popular and reasons for not using contraceptives. This study will also show differences in the socio-demographic and economic sub-groups and determinants of the observations made

The frequent contraceptive discontinuation among spacing method users, not only poses women
to a very high risk of unintended pregnancy but also exhibits the lesser conscious approach of
women to control their childbearing in India. In this context a large number of births preceded by
a contraceptive discontinuation/failure may be reported as unintended retrospectively.
Utilizing calendar data of National Family Health Survey (2005-06) this paper tries to estimate
the proportion of pregnancies reported as unintended/intended following the contraceptive
discontinuation and associated characteristics of the women.
The results suggest that 71% of the pregnancies following a method failure were reported as
unintended in comparison to 25% pregnancies which were not preceded by any contraception.
Among women who discontinued their method for reasons other than pregnancy, around 50%
reported their respective birth as unintended. The results from multivariate logistic regression
hint that the time-elapsed between contraceptive discontinuation and the index birth, age at the
time of conception, parity and place of the residence are the significant predictors of reporting a
pregnancy as intended/unintended retrospectively.

Background: It is believed that the world’s largest cohort of young people are set to enter their reproductive years (Blanc and others: 2009). The reproductive behaviour of this cohort is likely to shape and influence the growth of the world’s population for years to come (Blanc and others: 2009). Sexual behaviour among adolescents is often associated with adverse health outcomes such as Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STI’s), HIV infections, unwanted pregnancies as well as a high risk of complications during pregnancy (Mturi and others: 2005). Prior research has highlighted the lack of knowledge as the most frequent reason for the non-usage of contraceptives among young people (Mturi and others: 2005). Aim: This study is concerned with examining the relationship between knowledge and use of contraceptives among adolescent females in three Southern African countries namely: South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia. Methodology: Data from the most recent Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) for each country will be used. 2373 South African, 2205 Namibian and 1980 Zimbabwean females aged 15-19 will be included in the study. Three stages of analysis are necessary to meet the objectives of the study. Univariate, bivariate and multivariate logistic regression techniques will be employed.

In contrast to declining trend of the share of traditional methods in developing world, India has witnessed a gradual increase in traditional method use from 4% in 1992-93 to 8% in 2005-06 (shares 44% of spacing method use). The experience of accidental pregnancy among traditional method users is much high (one-fourth experienced failure within a year) than the modern spacing method. In addition, the use and continuity of modern spacing methods remained low and varies across users and methods in the country. A substantial proportion of method failures result into abortion or still birth posing serious consequences to the women.
In this context, this paper measures the level of abortion as a result of method failure among reversible method users and examines the correlates of abortion. Calendar data from the National Family Health Survey-3 (2005-06) were analyzed. Binary logit models were applied to analyze the determinants of fetal loss. The findings suggest that 75% of the pregnancies preceded by a method failure were carried to term and about 54% of them were reported as unintended. Fetal loss was found to be associated with age, early marriage, parity of the woman, fertility intentions, educational attainment, wealth status and duration of use.

BACKGROUND : Postpartum and postabortum contraception is program aimed to control birth spacing, pregnancy interval, prevent unwanted pregnancy, and increase maternal-child health.

OBJECTIVES : To explore preferences of acceptors in using contraceptive methods during postpartum and postabortum period.

METHODS : Research subject are postpartum and postabortum acceptors from 727 hospitals by 80,810 acceptors in 5 regions from 33 Indonesia’s provinces. Data taken from hospital’s reporting and recording start from January until December 2011.

RESULTS : Results are main contraceptive use nationally is injection (31.5%), and Java-Bali is highest contraceptive use (41,6%). Highest prevalence of vasectomy is Sumatera (53%). Highest prevalence of tubectomy is Java-Bali (46.9%). Highest prevalence of IUD is Java-Bali (52.2%). Highest prevalence of Implant is Sumatera (53.7%). Highest prevalence of Injection is Java-Bali (41.7%). Highest prevalence of Pill is Sumatera (47.1%). Highest prevalence of condom is Java-Bali (46.3%).

CONCLUSIONS : In order to improve the situation, health authorities should be encouraged to provide counselling on postpartum and postabortum contraceptive methods during ante and postnatal.

With high prevalence of induced abortion, Pakistani woman’s household living arrangements determines whether she is allowed to access abortion services or has to seek a clandestine abortion. Previous studies suggest a shift of role among various players and affect of some social changes in decision making process to seek abortion. The paper aims to unfold this process at household level in span of last ten years. The methodology includes an extended analysis of two studies carried out in 2002 and 2012.
Initial analysis suggests notable changing patterns of family type from joint to nuclear as contributing factor for choices of abortion seeking behavior. Furthermore, husbands’ role is still very dominant however they are becoming more supportive than earlier that helps reducing clandestine abortions. Role of the mother-in-law is diminishing or even supportive. Further analysis will provide deeper insights into these changes and whether it surmounts to better access to abortion services for women especially in poor and rural areas.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the magnitude of unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion and to assess awareness towards emergency contraceptives (EC) among antenatal care attendees in Ethiopia.
Method: A cross sectional study was conducted from August 19th to September 30th 2011 among 310 antenatal care attendants (age of 15-49) that were selected by using simple random sampling technique. The data were entered and analyzed using SPSS for windows version 16.0.
Result: Among 310 respondents, 87 (28%) reported their pregnancy was unintended and 56 (18%) had ever practiced unsafe abortion one or more times. Only 105 (34%) of respondents had heard about EC and among those only 11.8% had used the method previously. A considerable proportion of respondents (59.1%) reported their fear on using EC due to safety misconceptions.
Conclusion: This study indicated unintended pregnancy and unsafe abortion are very high due to lack of knowledge, practice and misconception towards EC among antenatal care (ANC) attending women. Therefore, it is necessary to promote emergency contraceptive awareness and use for ANC attendants with appropriate education methods.
Key words: Antenatal care attendees, unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion, emergency contraception, Ethiopia

Couples use different types of modern contraceptive methods to limit as well as space between two children according to their wish to complete their desired family size or delay according to their needs. Thus, effectiveness as well as use of contraceptives is the main theme of most of the Family Planning Program for any country. Study of contraceptive use is quite useful for developing country like India for making policies and programs. In this paper, the effect of contraceptive use for different characteristics, attitude and behavior of couples has been studied. Multivariate logistic regression analysis has been used to find the effect of modern contraceptive methods on different socio-demographic and economic variables. Total marital fertility rate (TMFR) has been calculated separately for the females who are using limiting as well as spacing methods of contraceptive. Furthermore, it has been observed that use of modern contraceptives methods reduces TMFR. Permanent method of modern contraceptive users has 0.51 less TMFR, whereas, temporary method of modern contraceptive users has 0.57 less TMFR than non-users. The finding may be useful to give an idea to implement for implementation the new family planning program according to need or effectiveness of contraceptives among the couples.