Women as young as 15 found pregnant in Ludhiana district, reveals survey

Ludhiana, August 21

Advertisement

In a startling revelation, women as young as 15 years of age were found pregnant in the district, a national survey has revealed.

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), conducted by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, through the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, has indicated that at least 3 per cent of young women aged 15 to 19 years have already begun childbearing, which included some of them already having a live birth or being pregnant with their first child.

The proportion of women, who have started childbearing, has risen sharply from 2 per cent at the age of 17 years to 4 per cent among women aged 18 years and 10 per cent among women aged 19 years.

The current survey, fifth in the NFHS series, which provides information on population, health and nutrition for India and each state and Union Territory, with district-level estimates for many important indicators, a copy of which is with The Tribune, showed that the proportion of women, who have started childbearing, was much higher among younger lot, who had no schooling (20 per cent) than those with some years of schooling (2 to 3 per cent).

It further revealed that 89 per cent of last pregnancies in the five years preceding the survey ended in a live birth, and the remaining 11 per cent terminated in foetal wastage, including abortion, miscarriage, or stillbirth.

While miscarriage was the most commonly reported type of foetal wastage, accounting for 7 per cent of all pregnancies, the abortions accounted for 3 per cent of total terminations of pregnancies.

The study found that the two main reasons for seeking abortion reported by women were unplanned pregnancy, which accounted for 36 per cent, and complications in pregnancy, which was pegged at 26 per cent.

The most common methods used for performing abortions were medicines (66 per cent), other surgical methods (13 per cent), and manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) (12 per cent).

Most abortions were performed in a health facility, including 45 per cent in the private health centres and 21 per cent in the public health sector. However, over one-third, accounting for 34 per cent, of abortions were performed at home. The survey also reported that 19 per cent of women reported complications from the abortion.