Teen pregnancies and contraceptive needs

By Rina Mukherji
29 Jul 2010

Reducing unintended pregnancies among adolescents will not only reduce maternal and newborn deaths, but will also improve the educational and employment opportunities for young women.

Preventing unintended pregnancies among adolescent women can greatly reduce maternal and newborn deaths and disability adjusted life years (dalys), which currently accounts for 16 per cent of all dalys lost among adolescent and young women aged 15-29 years in developing countries, according to analytical fact sheets prepared by the Guttmacher Institute and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). The analysis is based on data from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and was presented at the recently-concluded Women Deliver Conference in Washington.

An estimated 2.7 million adolescents become pregnant unintentionally every year. Adolescent mothers account for 12 per cent of all births in South Central and Southeast Asia, 16 per cent of all births in sub-Saharan Africa, and 18 per cent of all births in Latin America and the Caribbean. Almost all unintended adolescent pregnancies in South Central and Southeast Asia occur among married women, compared with an estimated 54 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa and 51 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, 15 percent of unmarried adolescents are sexually active and want to prevent pregnancy, as do 11 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. In fact, half of all sexually active adolescent women in these two regions who want to prevent pregnancy are unmarried.

There are an estimated 260 million girls and 280 million boys aged 15-19 in developing countries, according to the Population Division of the United Nations.
Although about 818 million women of reproductive age want to avoid pregnancy, 140 million women are not using any form of contraception, while another 75 million use less effective traditional methods.

In all regions, birthrates have declined over the past 30 years, but still vary widely by region. The biggest decrease has been in South Central Asia, where births dropped from an estimated 90 per 1000 women to 73 per 1000 in 2005.
Each year the use of modern contraceptives prevents 3.1 million unintended pregnancies all over the world, including 1.1 million in South Central and Southeast Asia.

Fulfilling all needs for modern family planning would prevent 7.4 million adolescent unintended pregnancies each year. The total cost of meeting the contraceptive needs of sexually active adolescents would be highest - that is $271 million - in low-income countries, which have the greatest need of creating and expanding their health service infrastructures, and lowest in upper-middle and high-income countries, that is, $ 104 million.

Reducing unintended pregnancies will not only greatly reduce maternal and newborn deaths, but will also improve the educational and employment opportunities for young women, and in turn, contribute to the improvement in the status of women, greater family savings, reduction in poverty and increased economic growth. It will also enable young women in developing countries to get longer schooling, gain productive experience in the labour market before marriage and childbearing, and develop the readiness for parenthood.

IPPF and the Guttmacher Institute recommend that contraceptive services be responsive to the special needs of adolescent women, and be provided in a manner that sexually active adolescents are not stigmatized. For this, family life education for the young in school and reaching out to those who are not attending school is suggested.
In every developing country, early marriage and early childbearing are common among women plagued by poverty and with little education. Whether single or married, adolescent mothers are found to have very little monetary resources of their own. Inadequate knowledge of contraception, high risk of sexual violence, and little independence in deciding on the timing or spacing of births make them especially vulnerable. Consequently, adolescents account for 14 percent, or an estimated 2.5 million unsafe abortions that occur in the developing world.

It is estimated that fully meeting the demand for contraception can avert 53 million unintended pregnancies each year, resulting in 22 million fewer unplanned births, 25 million fewer induced abortions, and 7 million fewer miscarriages.