Relationship among contraception, abortion, and fertility: lessons learned from Matlab, Bangladesh

Radheshyam Bairagi, ICDDR,B: Centre for Health and Population Research
Unnati Rani Saha, ICDDR,B: Centre for Health and Population Research

Abortion was found to increase with contraception in some populations and decrease in other populations. The study investigated the reasons for this contradiction using selective measures limited by paucity of detailed data on abortion from the Matlab Demographic Surveillance System (DSS), Bangladesh, for the 1978-1998 period. A comparison of abortion, contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR), desired fertility, and total fertility rate (TFR) over time formed the basis of the study. The desired fertility declined over time. Fertility was found to be converging to the desired fertility, and the process of convergence was faster in the MCH-FP area. The relationship between the CPR and the total abortion rate (TAR) was positive, negative, and zero during the convergence. Magnitude of abortion depends on the quality of reproductive health services; and a comprehensive MCH-FP program is expected to bring down both fertility and abortions substantially by increasing contraception.