The Incidence of Induced Abortion in Nigeria

Abstract

Although abortion is illegal in Nigeria except to save a womans life Nigerian women obtain thousands of safe and unsafe pregnancy terminations each year. To generate information on the likely incidence of abortion in Nigeria a national random sample survey was conducted in 1996-97 of all public and private health establishments where abortions might be performed or abortion complications might be treated. The final sample included physicians from 672 private and public medical facilities and teaching hospitals. Respondents were asked whether their facility terminated unwanted pregnancies and if so how many had been terminated during the past 6 months and how many in the last 4 weeks. 225 facilities performed abortions (average number of abortions per facility per year 52) and 529 provided treatment of abortion-related complications (average number of cases per year 48). 40% of abortions were performed by physicians in established health facilities while the remainder were performed by nonphysicians. Of the abortions performed by physicians 87% take place in privately owned facilities and 73% are performed by nonspecialist general practitioners. 75% of physician providers of abortion and 51% of providers who treat abortion complications use manual vacuum aspiration. National projections indicate that physicians in approximately 1300 hospitals and clinics terminate 245000 pregnancies each year and nonphysicians provide an additional 366000 abortions. Assuming that half of all women who undergo abortion by nonphysicians experience complications requiring treatment there are about 610000 abortions nationwide per year (rate 25 abortions/1000 women 15-44 years old). The minimum and best estimates for the number of abortions per 100 live births are 10/100 and 14/100 respectively. The rate is much lower in the poor rural regions of northern Nigeria than in the more economically developed southern regions.