Unwanted pregnancies and its related factors in pregnant women referredto health care centers in Bandar Abbas Iran - 2004

Introduction: Control of population growth rate and unwanted pregnancies (UWPs) is one of the most important priorities in developing countries. According to the last national health surveys in Iran Hormozgan province has the second leading population growth rate. Although several surveys have been conducted on prevalence UWPs in other provinces but there is no one in this province. The purpose of this study was to estimate the proportion of UWPs the pattern of help-seeking related behavior and its related factors among pregnant women Methods: This is a cross-sectional study which was conducted in Bandar Abbas in 2004. Stratified random sampling was performed to select 530 women referred to all of eight health care centers of the city. All of the cases were interviewed about their wanted or unwanted pregnancy or possibility of any action for illegal abortion. Their data were recorded in a pre-designed questionnaire. Chi-square and fisher's pair wise comparison tests were used for analysis. Results: In this study 141 (26.6%) of all cases were UWPs of which 64 (45.4%) resorted to abortion. Of which 43 (67.2%) had used herbal medications 10 (15.6%) chemical medications and 7 (11%) sharp vehicles to induce illegal abortion. Most of all cases with UWPs were in illiterate or very low educated (primary school) group or in high educated group (P