Study of the Factors Leading to Unintended Pregnancy in Women in Kumasi, Ghana

Abstract

pregnancy at the time of conception [1]. Out of about 210 million global pregnancies annually, about forty (40) percent are not planned and twenty-two (22) percent are aborted [2]. Ninetyfive percent (95.0%) are terminated in an unsafe manner in developing countries [2]. This rate has been higher in Africa but similar in Ghana [3]. Unsafe abortion has been shown to account for 15% to 30% of all maternal deaths in Ghana [4,5]. Knowledge on the immediate factors leading to the occurrences of unintended pregnancies could help in putting in preventive measures in order to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with unsafe abortion. These factors include contraceptive failure, non-use of contraception, using contraception inconsistently or incorrectly, rape/incest and sex for a favour [6–8]. Hatcher and colleagues associated a relatively small fraction of unintended pregnancies to contraceptive failure when modern highly effective contraceptives are used [7]. Incorrect or non-use of contraceptive might be as a result of coercion, rape or involuntary sex in the context of domestic violence [9]. Unintended pregnancies are more likely to be associated with abuse than intended pregnancies.