Prof. Innocent Ujah, Director-General, National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), said there is no complete abortion without the evacuation of the womb.
Ujah said this in a media chat with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.
He said abortion could either be induced or be spontaneous, adding that whichever form of abortion, the woman needed to visit the hospital for proper evacuation of the foetus.
He said unsafe abortion can be as a result of spontaneous abortion or induced abortion. The dangerous case is a situation where women will miscarry and they won’t go to the hospital; that is not induced abortion.
If there is any tissue in the womb, it will become infected and once infected, it will spread all over the wombs and the tubes thereby blocking them.
That’s when you will see some women that have heard babies before and suddenly stop as a result of untreated miscarriage, they get infected and their wombs get blocked which prevents them from having babies.
He explained that when a woman has miscarriage, she needs to go the hospital to wash the womb because no abortion is complete until an evacuation is done and that will reduce the significant level and incidence of complicated unsafe abortion.
He recommended contraception among women of reproductive age, adding that it will reduce the risk of unsafe abortions.
He recalled that the country’s law on abortion was only done to preserve the life of the woman thereby exposing so many young women to unsafe abortion.
Family planning should be done to protect women who are not ready to have babies, whether girls or women. It is only when they are ready they can have babies.
He said once the contraceptive prevalence rate is improved we will find out we will do well.
He said another one that creates a lot of problem is unplanned and unwanted pregnancy, because you can have unplanned but wanted pregnancy.
The unplanned pregnancy and unwanted pregnancy is the issue we need to sort out and by law it cannot be terminated unless it is to save the life of the woman.
Ujah further stated that before the law is reviewed women in the reproductive age should embrace family planing and contraceptives because that will help a lot in reducing unplanned and unwanted pregnancy.
