Rates of Unintended Pregnancy Remain High in Developing Regions (Digests) (Report‪)‬

Despite a drop in global rates of pregnancy and unintended pregnancy, the proportion of pregnancies that are unintended remains high, especially in the developing world, according to a study of worldwide trends in pregnancy levels. (1) The study, the first to evaluate global pregnancy levels by intention and outcome, found that from 1995 to 2008, the global pregnancy rate declined by 17% in both developed and developing regions. The unintended pregnancy rate dropped to an even greater degree--by 29% and 20%, respectively--in developed and developing areas. Yet, roughly lour in 10 pregnancies worldwide were unintended in 2008, and the proportion was substantially higher in South America and southern Attica, where six in 10 were unintended. Unintended pregnancy and unplanned birth can endanger the health of women and their families, and reflect, among other factors, barriers to contraceptive access and use. To identify the regions most in need of improved contraceptive services, investigators estimated global, regional and subregional levels of pregnancies, unintended pregnancies, unplanned births, induced abortions and miscarriages. Estimates of unplanned births were calculated by combining United Nations estimates of numbers of live births in 2008 with findings on the intention status of births from more than 70 national demographic, health and population surveys, most of which were conducted between 2000 and 2007. For countries that lacked data an unplanned births, the researchers used the weighted averages of findings for countries with available data in their subregion.