Susheela Singh

Guttmacher Institute · Research

Objectives The transition to small family size is at an advanced phase in India, with a national TFR of 2.2 in 2015–16. This paper examines the roles of four key determinants of fertility—marriage, contraception, abortion and postpartum infecundability—for India, all 29 states and population subgroups. Methods Data from the most recent available n...

Context: In Indonesia, maternal mortality is high and abortion is restricted. Reliable information on induced abortion is needed; however, the difficulty of measuring abortion in settings where it is legally restricted and highly stigmatized calls for innovation in approaches to measuring abortion incidence. Methods: The data were from three ori...

Abortion has been legal under broad criteria in India since 1971. However, access to legal abortion services remains poor. In the past decade, medication abortion (MA) has become widely available in India and use of this method outside of health facilities accounts for over 70% of all abortions. Morbidity from unsafe abortion remains an important h...

Objectives Nationally representative evidence on abortion service provision is scarce in South Asia. To inform improvements in service provision, this paper assesses the availability of facility-based postabortion services in Nepal, India (six states), Bangladesh and Pakistan, and legal abortion services in India and Nepal and Bangladesh (where the...

Background Safe abortion services are essential if women are to fulfill their right to have the number of children they want, when they want them. This paper examines the provision of abortion and menstrual regulation (MR) services in four South Asian countries that have many commonalities in sexual and reproductive outcomes and in barriers to acce...

Medical methods of abortion, MMA, has been legal in India since 2002. Guidelines stipulate that it should be administered by a provider or acquired via prescription. 1.2 million women having abortions in India use MMA acquired from health facilities [Singh, S., Shekhar, C., Acharya, R., Moore, A. M., Stillman, M., Pradhan, M. R., … Browne, A. (2018...

Induced abortion is a reproductive behavior that remains difficult to measure in countries where the procedure is highly restricted by law. Additionally, in some countries where abortion is broadly legal, a high proportion of abortions are carried out by illegal and untrained providers. In these contexts, official statistics are non-existent or hig...

Overview of abortion and unintended pregnancy worldwide

Background: Reliable information on the incidence of induced abortion in India is lacking. Official statistics and national surveys provide incomplete coverage. Since the early 2000s, medication abortion has become increasingly available, improving the way women obtain abortions. The aim of this study was to estimate the national incidence of abor...

Background Global estimates of unsafe abortions have been produced for 1995, 2003, and 2008. However, reconceptualisation of the framework and methods for estimating abortion safety is needed owing to the increased availability of simple methods for safe abortion (eg, medical abortion), the increasingly widespread use of misoprostol outside formal...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0172976.].

Background In 2010–2014, approximately 86% of abortions took place in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Although abortion incidence varies minimally across geographical regions, it varies widely by subregion and within countries by subgroups of women. Differential abortion levels stem from variation in the level of unintended pregnancies an...

Characteristics of women obtaining abortions in Ethiopia and Nigeria by data source. (PDF)

Percentage distribution of abortions by age and data source. (PDF)

List of sources of data. (PDF)

Abortion rates (number of abortions per 1000 women ages 15–44) by country in Africa, Europe, and Central America and the Caribbean. (PDF)

Abortion rates (number of abortions per 1000 women ages 15–44) by country in Asia. (PDF)

Percentage distribution of reproductive-age women by sociodemographic characteristics, by region and country. (PDF)

CONTEXT: Menstrual regulation (MR) has been part of the Bangladesh family planning program since 1979. However, clandestine abortion remains a serious health problem in Bangladesh, and anecdotal reports indicate that clandestine use of misoprostol has increased since the most recent estimates (for 2010). Because of this, it is important to assess c...

Context: Contraceptive failure rates measure a woman's probability of becoming pregnant while using a contraceptive. Information about these rates enables couples to make informed contraceptive choices. Failure rates were last estimated for 2002, and social and economic changes that have occurred since then necessitate a reestimation. Methods: T...

Context: Although abortion has been legal under broad criteria in Nepal since 2002, a significant proportion of women continue to obtain illegal, unsafe abortions, and no national estimates exist of the incidence of safe and unsafe abortions. Methods: Data were collected in 2014 from a nationally representative sample of 386 facilities that prov...

Maternal health is a big issue and is central to sustainable development. Each year, about 210 million women become pregnant and about 140 million newborn babies are delivered-the sheer scale of maternal health alone makes maternal well being and survival vital concerns. In this Series paper, we adopt primarily a numerical lens to illuminate patter...

Context: In 2005, Ethiopia's parliament amended the penal code to expand the circumstances in which abortion is legal. Although the country has expanded access to abortion and postabortion care, the last estimates of abortion incidence date from 2008. Methods: Data were collected in 2014 from a nationally representative sample of 822 facilities...

Background: Information about the incidence of induced abortion is needed to motivate and inform efforts to help women avoid unintended pregnancies and to monitor progress toward that end. We estimate subregional, regional, and global levels and trends in abortion incidence for 1990 to 2014, and abortion rates in subgroups of women. We use the res...

Over the last five years, comprehensive national surveys of the cost of post-abortion care (PAC) to national health systems have been undertaken in Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda and Colombia using a specially developed costing methodology-the Post-abortion Care Costing Methodology (PACCM). The objective of this study is to expand the research findings o...

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/contraceptive-failure-rates-in-developing-world.pdf

Until recently, WHO operationally defined unsafe abortion as illegal abortion. In the past decade, however, the incidence of abortion by misoprostol administration has increased in countries with restrictive abortion laws. Access to safe surgical abortions has also increased in many such countries. An important effect of these trends has been that,...

Background: While most unintended pregnancies occur because couples do not use contraception, contraceptive failure is also an important underlying cause. However, few recent studies outside of the United States have estimated contraceptive failure rates, and most such studies have been restricted to married women, to a limited number of countries...

Context: Because of Nigeria's low contraceptive prevalence, a substantial number of women have unintended pregnancies, many of which are resolved through clandestine abortion, despite the country's restrictive abortion law. Up-to-date estimates of abortion incidence are needed. Methods: A widely used indirect methodology was used to estimate the...

The recently promulgated 2010 constitution of Kenya permits abortion when the life or health of the woman is in danger. Yet broad uncertainty remains about the interpretation of the law. Unsafe abortion remains a leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality in Kenya. The current study aimed to determine the incidence of induced abortion in Ken...

With changing conditions affecting receipt of postabortion care, an updated estimate of the incidence of treatment for complications from unsafe pregnancy termination is needed to inform policies and programmes. National estimates of facility-based treatment for complications in 26 countries form the basis for estimating treatment rates in the deve...

n This report draws on national survey data from 70 developing countries to provide an overview of adolescent women's needs for and use of sexual and reproductive health services.

To examine pregnancy rates and outcomes (births and abortions) among 15- to 19-year olds and 10- to 14-year olds in all countries for which recent information could be obtained and to examine trends since the mid-1990s. Information was obtained from countries' vital statistics reports and the United Nations Statistics Division for most countries in...

During the past decade, unmet need for family planning has remained high in Pakistan and gains in contraceptive prevalence have been small. Drawing upon data from a 2012 national study on postabortion-care complications and a methodology developed by the Guttmacher Institute for estimating abortion incidence, we estimate that there were 2.2 million...

Periodic estimation of the incidence of global unintended pregnancy can help demonstrate the need for and impact of family planning programs. We draw upon multiple sources of data to estimate pregnancy incidence by intention status and outcome at worldwide, regional, and subregional levels in 2012 and to assess recent trends using previously publis...

Based on research conducted in 2012, we estimate the cost to the Rwandan health-care system of providing post-abortion care (PAC) due to unsafe abortions, a subject of policy importance not studied before at the national level. Thirty-nine public and private health facilities representing three levels of health care were randomly selected for data...

Although Uganda has a restrictive abortion law, illegal abortions performed under dangerous conditions are common. Data are lacking, however, on the economic impact of postabortion complications on women and their households. Data from a 2011-2012 survey of 1,338 women who received postabortion care at 27 Ugandan health facilities were used to asse...

Teen pregnancies, many of which are unintended, often have negative effects on the social and economic prospects of young women. In many developing countries, early pregnancy and childbearing can also pose major health risks for adolescent girls. A prior assessment of teen pregnancy rates in developed countries demonstrated a wide variation across...

Unintended pregnancies often have negative effects on the well-being of women and families, and periodic estimation of global unintended pregnancy incidence can help evaluate the actual and potential impact of family planning programs. We estimate pregnancy rates and the distribution of pregnancies by intention status and outcome at worldwide, regi...

The current law in Pakistan permits abortion only under narrow circumstances. As a result, women resort to clandestine and unsafe abortion procedures, which often lead to complications. This report summarizes findings from a study that examined the conditions under which women obtain abortion in Pakistan; the incidence, coverage and quality of faci...

Unsafe abortion is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a procedure for terminating pregnancy, carried out either by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimal medical standards, or both. Under the 2010 Kenyan constitution, abortion may be granted to a pregnant woman or girl, when in the...

Abortion is legally restricted in Malawi, and no data are available on the incidence of the procedure. The Abortion Incidence Complications Methodology was used to estimate levels of induced abortion in Malawi in 2009. Data on provision of postabortion care were collected from 166 public, nongovernmental and private health facilities, and estimates...

Background: Data for trends in contraceptive use and need are necessary to guide programme and policy decisions and to monitor progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5, which calls for universal access to contraceptive services. We therefore aimed to estimate trends in contraceptive use and unmet need in developing countries in 2003, 2008, a...

Context: Assessments of abortion levels and trends by women's age at termination can be used to monitor trends in unintended pregnancy by age and can inform relevant programs and policies. Methods: Legal abortion incidence data were compiled from national statistical offices and nationally representative surveys of more than 40 countries where l...

This article presents estimates based on the research conducted in 2010 of the cost to the Ugandan health system of providing post-abortion care (PAC), filling a gap in knowledge of the cost of unsafe abortion. Thirty-nine public and private health facilities were sampled representing three levels of health care, and data were collected on drugs, s...

Although Ghana's abortion law is fairly liberal, unsafe abortion and its consequences remain among the largest contributors to maternal mortality in the country. This study analyzes data from the 2007 Ghana Maternal Health Survey to identify the sociodemographic profiles of women who seek to induce abortion and those who are able to obtain safe abo...

CONTEXT: Bangladesh is unique in including menstrual regulation (MR) services as part of the government family planning program, despite having a highly restrictive abortion law. The only national estimates of MR and abortion incidence are from a 1995 study, and updated information is needed to inform policies and programs regarding the provision o...

Assessments of abortion levels and trends by women's age at termination can be used to monitor trends in unintended pregnancy by age and can inform relevant programs and policies. Legal abortion incidence data were compiled from national statistical offices and nationally representative surveys of more than 40 countries where legal abortion is gene...

To address the knowledge gap that exists in costing unsafe abortion in Ethiopia, estimates were derived of the cost to the health system of providing postabortion care (PAC), based on research conducted in 2008. Fourteen public and private health facilities were selected, representing 3 levels of health care. Cost information on drugs, supplies, ma...

The number of Colombian women hospitalized for the treatment of induced abortion complications increased from 57 679 in 1989 to 93 336 in 2008; the hospitalization rate also rose: from 7.2 to 9.1 cases per 1000 women aged 15-44 years. Factors that likely underlie the increase include improved access to postabortion care (although 1 in 5 women still...

Brazil offers a unique opportunity to analyze trends in abortion-related morbidity over time with high-quality data. National data on facility-based treatment of abortion complications from 1992-2009 were analyzed. Large declines occurred in the number and rate of women treated for abortion complications: the national number of treated cases declin...

Maternal mortality has declined considerably in Bangladesh over the past few decades. Some of that decline--though precisely how much cannot be quantified--is likely attributable to the country's menstrual regulation program,which allows women to establish nonpregnancy safely after a missed period and thus avoid recourse to unsafe abortion. Key Poi...

Because abortion laws in Mexico, which are generally highly restrictive, are determined by individual states, state-level data are essential for policymakers to make informed decisions. In addition, age-specific abortion estimates are needed, given societal concern about young women's risk for unwanted pregnancy and abortion. The Abortion Incidence...

Women whose abortions performed according to medical guidelines are at very low risk of complications. A significant proportion of women with unsafe abortions, however, are at substantial risk of morbidity and death. Unintended pregnancies occur in all societies, and women determined to avoid an unplanned birth will seek unsafe abortions if they ha...

The passage of a liberalized abortion law is one of many changes that must take place if women are to gain access to safe and legal services. A study of the process following legal reforms in six settings in Asia, Africa and Latin America confirms that the practical work of establishing safe abortion services can take years and requires resources a...

Newly available data show large differences in rates of unintended pregnancy across states. Because key policy and program decisions that could affect these rates are made by state governments, it is important to assess whether characteristics of the states are associated with this variation. Regression analysis was used to assess the relationship...

Abortion is illegal in Rwanda except when necessary to protect a woman's physical health or to save her life. Many women in Rwanda obtain unsafe abortions, and some experience health complications as a result. To estimate the incidence of induced abortion, we conducted a national sample survey of health facilities that provide postabortion care and...

Background: Data of abortion incidence and trends are needed to monitor progress toward improvement of maternal health and access to family planning. To date, estimates of safe and unsafe abortion worldwide have only been made for 1995 and 2003. Methods: We used the standard WHO definition of unsafe abortions. Safe abortion estimates were based...

Brazil offers a unique opportunity to analyze trends in abortion-related morbidity over time with high-quality data. National data on facility-based treatment of abortion complications from 1992–2009 were analyzed. Large declines occurred in the number and rate of women treated for abortion complications: the national number of treated cases declin...

It is well recognised that unsafe abortions have significant implications for women's physical health; however, women's perceptions and experiences with abortion-related stigma and disclosure about abortion are not well understood. This paper examines the presence and intensity of abortion stigma in five countries, and seeks to understand how stigm...