Prevalence of Unintended Pregnancy and its Association with Unmet Need for Contraception among Married Women in Bangladesh

Abstract

Objectives: Unmet need for contraception and unintended pregnancy is perceived as critical boundaries towards advancing women’s regenerative wellbeing and prosperity. This paper examines the current prevalence of unintended pregnancy and unmet need for contraception and explores the effect of unmet need for contraception in unwanted pregnancy in a nationwide representative sample in Bangladesh.

Methods: This cross-sectional study is based on data from Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey, 2014. Participants were 4,074 married women of reproductive age (15-49 years). Pregnancy intention status for the last-born child was the leading result variable and the independent variable of basic concern was unmet need for contraception. In this analysis we used chi-square test of independence and binary logistic regression.

Results: An unmet need for contraception is a significant predictor of unintended pregnancy and average age of the sample populace was 24.36 years (SD 5.625). About 24.4% of the women explained their most recent pregnancy as unintended and the prevalence of unmet need for contraception was 17.9%. In the binary logistic model, the odds ratio indicates that women who had unmet need for contraception were about 32 times bound to have unintended pregnancy contrasted with the individuals who had not (95% CI = 17.284 – 60.434).

Conclusions: Women in rural areas had the highest prevalence of both unintended pregnancy and unmet need for contraception than women in urban. Findings suggest that, reducing unplanned pregnancy, planning and actualizing procedures that make awareness at the community level and reinforcing no unmet need for contraception are recommended in Bangladesh.