For a period of one year, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport gave a number of abortion clinics extra time to have conversations about contraception, particularly with people in vurnerable situations. After these conversations, almost 70% opted to use contraception. Almost half opted for long-acting options such as an IUD, and almost one in five opted for a short-acting option such as the pill. These are the results of an evaluation by RIVM of measures to improve access to (free) contraceptives.
RIVM carried out this evaluation for the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, which has adopted an action plan (in Dutch) to help prevent unintended and unwanted pregnancies (2023–2025) and support pregnant women and their partners. Among other things, the latest figures on this subject, which RIVM collects every year, show that the number of abortions has risen slightly, just as in 2022.
More time to discuss contraception
The evaluation showed the importance of discussing the use of contraception with people in vurnerable situations, such as dealing with poverty. For almost half of this group, the unintended pregnancy was the result of ‘never’ using contraception or ‘not this time’. Providing abortion clinics with extra time can help start conversations about contraception with people in vulnerable situations.
Not Pregnant Now programme
The second measure concerns expanding the Not Pregnant Now (Nu Niet Zwanger, NNZ) programme. Municipalities offer this programme to help people make well-considered decisions about their desire to have children. At this point, 89% of municipalities have joined the programme. Expanding the programme will make it possible to provide better support to those municipalities and the programme’s partners, for example by recruiting content coordinators at the Municipal Public Health Services for the implementation of the programme.
Reduced pill use
Every year, RIVM collects figures on unintended pregnancies. Previously published figures by the Health and Youth Care Inspectorate show that the number of abortions has once again risen slightly (from 9.9 per 1,000 women in 2022 to 10.8 per 1,000 women in 2023). The reason for this increase is unclear. Furthermore, the number of women on hormonal birth control in the Netherlands is falling, particularly when it comes to women aged under 35. This is mainly because of a reduction in the use of the pill. Lastly, it is notable that more and more people are autonomously accessing decision-making support in case of an unintended pregnancy and the website infopuntonbedoeldzwanger.nl (in Dutch) is attracting an increasing number of visitors.