Unwanted pregnancies, unwanted births, consequences and unmet needs

Worldwide women have to cope up with heavy burden of unwanted pregnancies, mistimed, unplanned, with risk to their health. Their children and families also suffer. Such pregnancies are root cause of induced abortions(safe/unsafe) and grave consequences. Women, their partners can, for most part, prevent unwanted pregnancies by using contraceptives. However many women either do not use any contraceptive or use methods, with high failure rates. These women account for 82% of pregnancies that are not desired. Remaining unintended pregnancies occur among women who use modern contraceptive, either because they had difficulty using method consistently or because of failure. Helping women, their partner use modern contraceptives effectively is essential in achieving Millennium Development Goals for improving women’s health, reducing poverty. If all women in developing countries use modern contraceptives, there would be 22 million less unplanned births, 25 million fewer induced, 15 million fewer unsafe abortions, 90000 less maternal deaths and 390000 less children losing their mothers. Also making abortion services broadly legal, by understanding size, type of unmet needs, most important by creating awareness in communities can surely help tackle this problem to a large extent.