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 Some 74 million unintended pregnancies occur each year in developing
nations, a third of which are due to failed contraception, said the
New York-based Guttmacher Institute which studied 43 countries in
Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Exceptionally high rates of contraceptive failures were found in
Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Burundi, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan,
Kazakhstan, Paraguay and Turkey, it found.
The study by the research institute, which focuses on sexual and
reproductive health, did not determine the precise causes of the
particularly high incidences and said that would require additional
analysis.
Withdrawal and rhythm methods were most likely to fail, while
longer-acting methods such as intra-uterine devices (IUDs),
subdermal implants and injection were least likely to do so, it
found.
"Many factors, such as the quality of contraceptive services,
availability of a range of methods, and the continuous availability
of contraceptive supplies in that country, may contribute to this
finding," Chelsea Polis, lead author of the study, told the Thomson
Reuters Foundation.
Overall, the researchers found the lowest contraceptive failure
rates in East Africa and South Asia.
The research pointed out that unintended pregnancies put women at
risk of seeking abortions that are unsafe and illegal in many
developing nations.
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Separate research by the Population Council has found that the
highest proportion of unintended pregnancies occur in Latin America
and the Caribbean.
The Guttmacher researchers cautioned about the data quality from
West Africa and stigma in some cultures as potentially affecting
their analysis.
(Reporting by Sebastien Malo, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please
credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson
Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking,
property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
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