The alarming number of women who die from complications of unsafe abortion annually was brought to the fore in the presentation made by Women in the Waves yesterday at the concurrent session that held at the African Hall of the International conference centre.
According to Cecilia Costa who represented Women on Waves, Amsterdam, “Globally, approximately 13% of al maternal deaths are due to complications of unsafe abortion. Half of the women who have an abortion are mothers with children.” She maintained that that the number of women who accessed their websites showed that quite a large percentage of women require abortion services. When they do not have this, they resort to unsafe practices which in many cases lead to death.
Women in the Waves website currently has 15, 000 visitors each month with their Helpdesk answering almost 1000 emails per month from women who require information on abortion services. Costa was quick to point that the services rendered were in the form of rending online consultation and counseling sessions to women, and giving them information on the use of drugs which can be procured personally and giving.
From the analysis of the work done so far, 80% of the women who seek their services are between 7 and 9 weeks pregnant while the remaining 20% were less than 7 weeks pregnant. Of these women, 58% of them were usually grateful for the services rendered while 31% though stressed, accepted the service and 1% wished she had never had never had the service.
With only 41.4% of the women knowing about medical abortion before using the services of Women on Web, Costa concluded that increasing access to information and support of self-administration of medical abortions is live-saving.
* By Nnenna Ike
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