Contraception, abortions, demography in Russia

Rates of depopulation in Russia 5 times exceed those of the European countries, maternal death-rate is 2–5 times higher than in economically developed countries of the world, the tendency of decrease in reproductive potential of the population remains.

Negative data on the state of reproductive health are caused by great number of various medicosocial factors among which of essential importance are abortion rates, insufficient propagation of contraceptive methods and state of health of girls-teenagers. Almost every tenth young girl in Russia at the age under fourteen and every third one by sixteen has experience of sexual life. In young women the number of abortions is about 10% of all abortions, the rate of repeated abortions reaches 35–40%.

Annually from mothers younger than eighteen every tenth newborn in Russia is born.

The rate of using the up-to-date methods of contraception in the country did not significantly increase in recent years.

The most widely used method still is the intrauterine contraception, 12–15% of women of reproductive age make use of it. The number of women using hormonal pills made up 9–11% for the last years.

For many women in Russia now as before abortion is a method of birth regulation. The problem of propagation the use of various methods of contraception continues to be extremely important.

Programs of family planning are one of the main directions to improve reproductive health of teenagers and women of reproductive age, to prevent unplanned pregnancies and to decrease the number of abortions.