Unwanted pregnancy and unintended fertility among adolescents

Young people are a large majority of the population of Bangladesh, and women are married of at a young age. Still, over 30% of the married teenage women (girls) have not been contacted by a field worker regarding family planning, according to research by Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey.

The researchers conclude that there might be two reasons for the fact that fieldworkers do not reach more married teenage women. The first is that fieldworkers assume that there is no need for family planning services among young and newly wed couples, the second is that there is no encouragement or incentive for fieldworkers to reach out to this group.

The statistics show that the need for family planning is rather high, especially among the young and newly weds. According to  this research, 38% of adolescent women aged 15-24 have an unmet need. Teenage couples and married girls are  much less likely to have ever been contacted by family planning field worker or  to have been contacted within the previous six months, stated by the research.

The unmet need of adolescents for reproductive health information and services is huge and diverse both in terms of quality as well as quantity. This research helps all of us working in the field of sexual and reproductive health, understand the gravity of the issues, guiding efforts to adjust policies and focus more on youth and young girls and supporting programmatic efforts to reach more married girls with family planning information.