Trend of Unwanted Pregnancy and Induced Abortion Rates in Tehran: during 1981-2014

Over 200 million pregnancies occur worldwide annually; one third are unwanted and half end up in abortion. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of unwanted pregnancies and induced abortions during women’s childbearing age over a period of 30 years (divided into 5-year intervals) in Tehran, Iran.
This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2014 on 518 married women 15 to 55 years old living in Tehran with a history of at least one pregnancy. A questionnaire containing two sets of questions on individual and demographic characteristics and women’s abortion history was used to collect the data for a period of 30 years (divided into 5-year intervals). The data collected were analyzed using SPSS 16 (the significance level was a p-value of Of the 966 pregnancies among the 518 women studied, 665 (68.4%) were planned and 307 (31.6%) unwanted. There were 249 abortions, 108 (43.4%) of which were miscarriages, 41 cases (16.5%) for medical reasons, and 100 cases (40.2%) induced (deliberate). The proportion of induced abortions in unwanted pregnancies increased from 0.0% in 1981-1986 to 41.7% in 2011-2014.
Based on the findings it can be concluded that due to changes in family planning program effectiveness and accessibility of contraception methods in Iran unwanted pregnancies and the subsequent abortions have become more common.