How to reduce teenage abortion?

Abortion alert
It seems that every day at the Nghe An Provincial Center for Disease Control (formerly the Nghe An Reproductive Health Care Center), there are patients coming for abortions. It is worth mentioning that while in the past the subjects were mainly married women, now the age of abortion is getting younger, even some are only 13 - 14 years old.

Consequences of abortion. Illustration photo

“Patients who come to perform family planning (abortion) have many different subjects and characteristics. If the patient is a well-educated person, in the central area they come to do the planning when the pregnancy is only a few weeks. But if they are rural women, most of them tend to “choose the sex of the fetus.”

Doctor CKI Nguyen Thi Thu - Deputy Director of Provincial Center for Disease Control

For young people, due to lack of knowledge, they often go for treatment when the fetus is already large, which is worrying. In many cases, we have to advise them to keep the fetus to give birth safely. In addition, there are cases where people lack knowledge and buy abortion pills at home. Recently, a woman in Dien Chau, although already married, suffered from "near-death" hemorrhage after taking the medicine herself. After that, the doctors and nurses had to try very hard to help this patient escape danger.

Contraceptives are now very popular. However, the current limitation is that many people are not aware of contraception. Therefore, to prevent pregnancy effectively, we must increase propaganda to expand information to the community, improve technical skills at the grassroots level to limit complications...

Doctor CKI Nguyen Thi Thu - Deputy Director of Provincial Center for Disease Control

The situation of abortion is also alarming nationwide. According to statistics from the Department of Maternal and Child Health - Ministry of Health, on average each year there are about 300 - 400 thousand abortions officially reported nationwide, of which 60 - 70% are students, the rate of complications due to abortion is up to 68,000 people out of a total of 20 million abortions.

According to the General Department of Population and Family Planning, although the abortion rate in Vietnam has decreased in the past 10 years, the abortion rate among minors and young people has shown signs of increasing, accounting for more than 20%. It is worth noting that these are only statistics from state hospitals and there is still a huge "gap" from private hospitals and private clinics. Currently, each year, more than 1,000 children are abandoned due to unwanted pregnancies.

There are many reasons for unwanted pregnancies leading to abortion. But the most important reason is the lack of knowledge and skills in using modern contraceptive methods, or the need to use contraceptive methods but not being fully met. In addition, many cases have the need to use contraceptive methods but are afraid and do not dare to access health care services.

Doctor CKII Nguyen Ba Tan - Head of the Provincial Department of Population and Family Planning

With the specific characteristics of Nghe An, it is predicted that in the coming years, the number of women of childbearing age will continue to increase. Therefore, the abortion rate, including abortion among minors and young people, will certainly remain high.

Students are one of the important groups that need to be informed about the consequences of teenage abortion. Illustrative photo

Another alarming thing is that in modern society, premarital sex and cohabitation are no longer strange in the lives of a part of young people. However, the danger is that they lack knowledge about safe sex, and do not have the knowledge and skills to choose a suitable contraceptive method.

Unsafe abortion will lead to many consequences for the health, life and livelihood of women. Furthermore, the silent complications also greatly affect the ability to reproduce later such as uterine adhesions, blocked fallopian tubes, increasing the rate of infertility, especially secondary infertility, and can also negatively affect the psychology and physical health of the mother.

Actively practice safe contraception

In fact, promoting safe contraception has also been a regular activity of the provincial Population Department in recent times with many meaningful activities such as: organizing communication and consultation sessions in villages, hamlets, schools, organizing health check-ups and providing free contraceptive pills and contraceptives for women of childbearing age.

Deploying the communication model "Information landing - Family planning" in Hung Nhan commune (Hung Nguyen). Photo: Cong Kien

In particular, the Provincial Steering Committee for Population and Development organized a communication exchange program in response to "World Contraception Day" with the theme "Be proactive in contraception, no one can replace you". Through this, it aims to send a message to women to choose to live proactively, to be proactive in contraception and to choose the right time so that motherhood is always sacred and not a burden for themselves and their families.

In addition, localities also coordinate with the Management Board of the project to socialize the provision of contraceptives, reproductive health goods and services, organize seminars and training on reproductive health knowledge, and establish a distribution system...

Painting propaganda posters to promote family planning in Tan Ky. Photo courtesy of Trong Hung

In the past, it was difficult to mobilize people to voluntarily buy contraceptives, especially in rural and mountainous areas, because many people still had a dependent mentality. But now, through promoting propaganda, the socialization of contraceptives has become more convenient and many people voluntarily buy and use them to protect themselves.

Ms. Hoang Thi Lan - Deputy Head of Population - Family Planning Department (Provincial Population - Family Planning Department)

To make contraception effective, the Population Department also proactively propagates to each target group to come up with appropriate solutions.

For example, for couples of childbearing age, we will promote the use of safe, effective and appropriate contraceptive methods to reduce unwanted pregnancies, prevent complications due to pregnancy and reproductive tract infections.

Communication and consultation on the use of contraceptives in Hung Yen Bac and Hung Yen Nam communes (Hung Nguyen). Photo: Cong Kien

For adolescents and young people, propaganda will be conducted through club activities, friendly propaganda corners or thematic talks, thereby enhancing sex education, helping them gain knowledge and courage to avoid unwanted incidents while still in adulthood.