Socio-clinical profile of married women with history of induced abortion: A community-based cross-sectional study in a rural area

BACKGROUND: Induced abortion contributes significantly to maternal mortality in developing countries yet women still seek repeat induced abortion in spite of the availability of contraceptive services. OBJECTIVES: (1) To study the sociodemographic profile of abortion seekers. (2) To study the reasons for procuring abortions by married women of reproductive age group. MATERIALS AND METHODS: It was a cross-sectional community-based study. All the married women of reproductive age group (15–49 years) with a history of induced abortion were selected as the subjects. RESULTS: The most common reason for seeking an abortion was poverty (39.4%), followed by girl child and husband's insistence, which accounted for 17.2% each. More complications were noted in women undergoing an abortion in places other than government hospitals and also who did it in the second trimester. CONCLUSIONS: To reduce maternal deaths from unsafe abortion, several broad activities require strengthening such as decreasing unwanted pregnancies, increasing geographic accessibility and affordability, upgrading facilities that offers medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) services, increasing awareness among the reproductive age about the legal and safe abortion facilities, the consequences of unsafe abortion, ensuring appropriate referral facilities, increasing access to safe abortion services and increasing the quality of abortion care, including postabortion care.