Almost Half Of Pregnancies In India Were Mistimed Or Unwanted

Almost half of India’s 48.1 million pregnancies in 2015 were unintended, according to a new study on incidences of abortion and unintended pregnancy in India.

The study, published on December 12, 2017 in Lancet, a medical journal, was conducted by Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based research organisation working on reproductive health and International Institute for Population Sciences, a Mumbai-based research institute on population studies.

An unintended pregnancy is either mistimed or unwanted. While 11% pregnancies led to unintended births, 5% caused miscarriages from unintended births.

As many as 33% pregnancies resulted in induced abortions. India sees 15.6 million abortions every year, IndiaSpend reported on December 14, 2017.

The rate of unintended pregnancy---how often an unintended pregnancy occurs in 1,000 women of 15-49 years--was estimated at 70.1 per 1,000 women in India.

The global rate of unintended pregnancy was 53 per 1,000 women and 46 in Asia, according to this 2014 study by Guttmacher Institute.

The study showed that 52% pregnancies were intended--43% were planned and 9% miscarriages from planned pregnancies

The government needs to prioritise policies to increase access to comprehensive abortion care and quality contraceptive services that prevent unintended pregnancies, the study said.