Menstrual regulation and contraception in Bangladesh: competing or complementary?

To examine the relationship between menstrual regulation (MR) and subsequent use of contraception in Bangladesh, we studied the birth control practices of a 6-month cohort of 4359 family-planning acceptors in a family-planning clinic in Dacca. We compared their use of birth control measures before and after MR. We attempted to examine the subsequent pregnancy and induced-abortion rates of 1671 of these women through a 3-year non-concurrent prospective study. Of those 1172 made their first visit to the clinic to obtain an MR and the remaining 499 women, who served as a comparison group, made their first visit to obtain contraceptive services not associated with MR. Three years' followup data were available for 558 women in the MR group and 228 women in the comparison group. Based on these data, the 3-year pregnancy rate for the MR group was 37.6/100 women and the induced abortion rate was 4.3/100 women. The 3-year pregnancy rate for the comparison group was 39/100 women and the induced abortion rate was 3.5/100 pregnancies. Thus, during a 3-year period women in the MR group did not obtain abortions significantly more often than women in the comparison group.