Termination of pregnancy and the over 30s: what are trends in contraception use 1996-2006?

There is a shift in fertility patterns with more women commencing childbearing over 30 years of age. Little is known about trends in contraception use by women in this age group seeking a termination of pregnancy. This research presents a trend analysis to determine if there were significant changes in trends in contraception use pre- and post-termination of pregnancy for women over 30 years of age from 1996 to 2006 in South Australia. Data were collected from 1996 to 2006 from a service in South Australia. Data were examined using simple linear regression. At the time of conception, 53% of women reported using some form of contraception. Additionally, there was a significant decline in women using natural family planning methods at conception. Post-operatively, there was a significant decline in hormone methods being chosen, and a significant increase in women not using any contraception. Women over 30 years of age used contraception at the time of conception pre- and post-operatively of having a pregnancy terminated over the 10 year period of the study. Health promotion activities need to be further developed to cater for this age group and to take into consideration changing fertility patterns.Wendy F. Abigail, Charmaine Power and Ingrid Bela