Uptake of post‑abortion contraception among women who had manual vacuum aspiration at Federal Medical Centre, Owerri: A 5‑year review
Abstract
Background: Unexpected or unplanned pregnancy poses a major public health challenge in women of reproductive age, especially in low resource countries. Post‑abortion contraception is one of the key methods of reducing maternal mortality globally.
Objectives: This study was conducted to determine the uptake of contraception among women who received post‑abortion care following spontaneous or induced abortion at the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri.
Materials and Methods: This study was a 5‑year retrospective study that involved 480 women who received post‑abortion care from January 1st 2009 to December 31st 2013 in the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri.
Results: The overall uptake of contraception among the study population was 79.8%. This was found to be 78.7% among nulliparous women whereas an uptake of 80.9% was seen among parous women. The age range was from 15 to 46 years with a mean age of 28.5 ± 3.5 years. Women aged between 20 and 39 years accounted for 94% of the study population. While 77.9% accepted to use the barrier method, 20.2% did not accept any method of contraception. Incomplete abortion contributed to 81.3% of the total cases.
Conclusion: The uptake of contraception was high at the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri. It was found to be higher with the parous women than nulliparous women. Most of the women were between 20 and 39 years and were highly sexually active; therefore, reinforcing the importance of contraception from time to time among this age group will help reduce the incidence of unplanned/unwanted pregnancies, and thus, the morbidities and mortality associated with abortion.
Keywords: Abortion; contraception; manual vacuum aspiration
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