Abstract : To facilitate informed consideration of the issue of abortion, the Mauritius Family Planning Association (MFPA) interviewed 475 women admitted to 3 large government hospitals with complications of self-induced or clandestine abortion. Although abortion is strictly illegal in Mauritius, extrapolation of hospital data suggests at approximately 10,000 procedures (52% of live births) are performed each year. The study sample included the 90% of women admitted to the 3 hospitals in january-April 1992 who agreed to provide qualitative and quantitative information. The mean age of study subjects was 28.3 years; 32% were under 25 years of age. 91% already had at least 1 living child. The sample was evenly divided between urban and rural residents. Only 274% had attended secondary school. 93% used a crude and/or self-induced method (insertion of bicycle spokes into the vagina, herbs, misoprostol ingestion); 20% of procedures were performed in the second trimester. Before the abortion, only 31% were using a supplied method of contraception; 12% used condoms, 9% relied on natural family planning, 33% used withdrawal, and 17% were not using any method. Ministry of Health clinics and pharmacies, not MFPA facilities, were the major source of supplies. Qualitative analysis revealed these women to have different needs, attitudes, and behaviors based on their stage in the family cycle (unmarried, delayers, spacers, and stoppers). In this sample, women who desired no further births were the largest grouping (62%), followed by birth spacers (23%). Post-abortion, 63% of women indicated they planned to use a modern method of contraception. Most significant was the intent of 27% of stoppers to seek sterilization. Despite their hospitalization, 16% of unmarried subjects, 13.6% of delayers, 6.4% of spacers, and 34.1% of stoppers reported they would consider another abortion. This finding suggests that abortion is viewed, by many, as an alternative method of fertility regulation. Most families in Mauritius accept the small family norm; the challenge is to increase the volume of family planning services to meet this demand, make sterilization part of public health care services, and identify subgroups at greatest risk of nonuse or ineffective use of contraceptives.
Source : Source Popline : http://db.jhuccp.org/popinform/basic.html -PIP 094229.