Community-Based Survey of Unwanted Pregnancy in Southwestern Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Unwanted pregnancy; and consequently unsafe abortion; remains major reproductive health problems in Nigeria that needs to be tackled. Unfortunately; there is a dearth of information on this problem at the community level. This study therefore examined the prevalence of unwanted pregnancy in the community as well as associated factors including the views; perceptions and attitudes of community members towards unwanted pregnancy and the pattern of help-seeking behaviour on unwanted pregnancy. Information was obtained from 3;743 women in urban and rural communities in two Nigerian states of Lagos and Edo. At some point in life; 26.6 of the respondents had had unwanted Pregnancy while abortion prevalence was 21.7 . Short birth intervals (21.1 ); high cost of raising children (20.1 ); interruption of education (20.1 ) and being unmarried (17.3 ) were the most common reasons for not wanting pregnancies. Most of the respondents (91.3 ) were aware of some form of contraception but ever-use rate was only 36.6 while current use rate was 23.4 . Both abortion and contraceptive use were significantly associated with increasing levels of education. Unwanted pregnancy constitutes a problem even at the community level and more research is needed to understand the persistent disparity between contraceptive knowledge and usage; as increased usage will reduce unwanted pregnancy and induced abortion