Factors associated with short-term oral contraceptive discontinuation.
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Nationwide surveillance of Rh hemolytic disease of the newborn showed that associated infant mortality decreased from 941 deaths in 1968 to 269 deaths in 1975, or from 2.7 to 0.9 per 10,000 live births. The incidence of Rh hemolytic disease declined from 45 per 10,000 total births in 1970 to 21 per 10,000 in 1975. In 1970, an estimated 16,000 infants were affected, whereas in 1975, the number was 6,000. Several state-based Rh disease surveillance programs reported declining mortality and incidence and increasing use of Rh immune globulin. Rh immune globulin was administered to an estimated 80% of eligible Rh-negative women in 1974, eighty-one percent in 1975, and 82% in 1976. More concerted efforts are needed to determine the frequency of maternal sensitization and to identify and correct gaps in postpartum and postabortion use of Rh immune globulin.
Experience with 50 first time aborters, 50 second time aborters, and 50 third time aborters residing in an urban area of Copenhagen suggests that women having a repeat abortion are more similar than dissimilar to women having a first induced abortion. There were no differences in socioeconomic status, educational level, or stated reasons for choosing abortion (usually socioeconomic and family considerations). Though similar to first and second time aborters in their life situations and greater contraceptive risk-taking, third timers seemed to become pregnant more readily. They were also less willing to be interviewed. Related studies and suggestions for postabortion counseling are discussed.
BACKGROUND: The cause of bacterial vaginosis remains poorly understood. Recent evidence strengthens the association between bacterial vaginosis and serious medical complications. GOAL: To review the evidence linking bacterial vaginosis with adverse pregnancy outcomes, complications after gynecologic procedures, and HIV infection, and to identify prevention strategies. METHODS: In March 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention organized a conference to accomplish this goal. RESULTS: Better understanding is needed concerning the etiology, epidemiology, and natural history of bacterial vaginosis. More efficacious treatment of bacterial vaginosis and strategies to reduce maternal complications associated with bacterial vaginosis, such as premature rupture of the fetal membranes, chorioamnionitis, premature labor and delivery, postdelivery endometritis, and postpartum infant complications should be developed. Recent evidence shows that screening and treatment of bacterial vaginosis before abortion reduces postabortion pelvic inflammatory disease, and that anaerobic coverage during hysterectomy reduces postoperative complications. Better understanding concerning the relation of bacterial vaginosis to acquisition of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infection are needed as well as possible prevention strategies. CONCLUSIONS: A national prevention effort should be guided by the results of research that addresses current knowledge gaps.
Postabortion care has received increasing emphasis as an important intervention to address part of the problem of unsafe abortion. Although a good deal of attention has been paid to improving emergency treatment of abortion complications, the other elements of postabortion care, including providing postabortion family planning services, have received less attention and are rarely found in health-care settings around the world. This report describes a study that was conducted in Kenya to test three different models of ways to provide postabortion family planning. The study shows that these new services are both feasible and acceptable to providers and patients, and also shows how effective they can be. Whereas only 7 percent of women received family planning counseling according to the baseline survey, this proportion increased to 68 percent in the postintervention period. In addition, 70 percent of women who decided to begin using contraceptives received a method, compared with only 3 percent at baseline. The provision of postabortion family planning counseling and methods on the gynecological ward by ward staff was found to be the preferred and most effective model.
The present study is the first randomized ten-year comparison of the standard, non-medicated Lippes Loop D and the same device with the addition of 200 mm2 of copper in the form of copper sleeves. The devices were randomly inserted immediately after first trimester medical termination of pregnancy. Out of 400 postabortal IUD insertions, 371 were followed for up to ten years. Gross cumulative life-table accidental pregnancy rates after one year of use were 0.56 for the copper-bearing Lippes Loop and 4.63 for the standard Lippes Loop. After two, four and ten years, these rates were 1.24, 2.70 and 3.62 and 6.03, 7.58 and 14.94, respectively (in all comparisons, rates were significantly different at the 0.05 level or lower). At each time interval, expulsion/displacement rates were 4.49, 4.49, 5.23 and 6.32 for the copper-bearing Lippes Loop and 12.61, 13.29, 15.46 and 19.79 for the standard Lippes Loop (rates were significantly different at the 0.01 level or lower). Differences in removal rates for bleeding and/or pain were not significantly different at any of the follow-up intervals. The lower event rates for copper-bearing Lippes Loop D users indicates that the addition of copper to the Lippes Loop IUD may result in better long-term efficacy profiles for this device among postabortal women. The results also suggest that large, medicated IUDs may be more efficacious for women with larger uteri who often experience higher failure rates due to expulsion or displacement of smaller IUDs into the lower uterine segment.
The major goal of rubella immunization is the prevention of the congenital rubella syndrome. As many as 20 per cent of women in the reproductive age group in the United States continue to be susceptible to rubella despite the immunization programs currently in place. Intensified efforts are therefore needed to identify persons at risk for infection and to vaccinate them. Women who develop a rubella-like illness during pregnancy should have the diagnosis confirmed serologically because a diagnosis based on clinical criteria alone is unreliable and because of the serious implications of gestational rubella infection. The rubella virus can infect the fetus at any stage of pregnancy, but defects are rarely noted when this occurs after the 16th week of gestation. The most common abnormalities in the congenital rubella syndrome are hearing loss, mental retardation, cardiac malformations, and eye defects. Diabetes mellitus, thyroid disease, glaucoma, and other delayed manifestations of congenital rubella syndrome are common, thereby necessitating long-term followup of these patients. The detection of rubella-specific IgM antibodies in fetal blood is helpful in establishing the diagnosis prenatally and can aid in the management of pregnancies complicated by this infection. Susceptible women identified through screening during pregnancy should be immunized in the immediate postpartum or postabortion period. Although the live, attenuated rubella vaccine is contraindicated during pregnancy, pregnant women who are inadvertently immunized are not candidates for pregnancy termination because no defects consistent with congenital rubella have been reported to date in the offspring of other similarly vaccinated women.
CONTEXT: Although Guatemalan law permits induced abortion only to save a woman's life, many women obtain abortions, often under unsafe conditions and in response to an unintended pregnancy. Recent studies indicate that unsafe abortion is a key factor contributing to maternal morbidity and mortality in the country, but no national data on the incidence of abortion exist. METHODS: Surveys of all hospitals that treat women for postabortion complications and of 74 professionals who are knowledgeable about the conditions of abortion provision in Guatemala were conducted in 2003. Indirect estimation techniques were used to calculate the number of induced abortions performed annually. Abortion rates and ratios and the level of unintended pregnancy were calculated for the nation and its eight regions. RESULTS: Nearly 65,000 induced abortions are performed annually in Guatemala, and about 21,600 women are hospitalized for treatment of complications. Abortions occur at a rate of 24 per 1,000 women aged 15-49, and there is one abortion for every six births. The abortion rate is higher than average in the Southwest (less developed, mainly indigenous population) and Metropolitan (more developed, mainly nonindigenous population) regions (29-30 per 1,000 women). Over a quarter of all births are unplanned; combining unplanned births with abortions yields estimates that 32% of pregnancies in Guatemala are unintended, with an unintended pregnancy rate of 66 per 1,000 women. CONCLUSIONS: Unsafe abortion has a significant impact on women's health in Guatemala. Comprehensive government programs are needed to address the issues of unintended pregnancy and unsafe abortion, with attention to regional differences.
This article focuses on a therapeutic approach to help women deal with the feelings of grief and guilt they may feel as a result of a voluntary termination of a pregnancy. Available medical and psychological literature indicates that, from a public health perspective, significant psychological problems related to an abortion are "minuscule." Several women the author saw during the 1992/93 academic year who considered themselves to be extremely religious and profile had undergone elective abortion. They experienced tremendous guilt and grief 4 to 6 months after the procedure. The author recommends that college health center medical and counseling providers who must deal with this issue help the woman validate her loss by revisiting the site of her abortion to reflect upon the experience and to hold a Gestalt dialogue with the fetus to end the relationship. The provider or someone else should accompany the woman to the site because of the increasing potentiality for violence on the part of prolife protesters.
This article grew out of a keynote address prepared for the conference, "From Abortion to Contraception: Public Health Approaches to Reducing Unwanted Pregnancy and Abortion Through Improved Family Planning Services," held in Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR in October 1990. The article reviews the legal, religious, and medical situation of induced abortion in Europe in historical perspective, and considers access to abortion services, attitudes of health professionals, abortion incidence, morbidity and mortality, the new antiprogestins, the characteristics of abortion seekers, late abortions, postabortion psychological reactions, effects of denied abortion, and repeat abortion. Special attention is focused on the changes occurring in Romania, Albania, and the former Soviet Union, plus the effects of the new conservatism elsewhere in the formerly socialist countries of central and eastern Europe, particularly Poland. Abortion is a social reality that can no more be legislated out of existence than the controversy surrounding it can be stilled. No matter how effective family planning services and practices become, there will always be a need for access to safe abortion services.
Between October 1989 and April 1991, 215 women were seen in the pregnancy centre. Of these women, 139 were in crisis pregnancy situations. Of the remaining 76 women, 42 attended for pregnancy education, 10 for counselling regarding adoption options, eight for postabortion counselling, and 10 for other reasons. All 139 women in crisis pregnancy situations received counselling and assistance with the resolution of the specific life crises that the pregnancy precipitated and were informed about the physical and emotional effects of pregnancy, normal fetal development, and the options that were available to them. These 139 women were divided into three groups at the start of their initial interview, according to whether they planned to continue with the pregnancy (18), seek termination of pregnancy (72), or were ambivalent (49). The outcome for each of these groups has been evaluated separately. Overall 65 (47%) of the women changed an initial decision or reached their final decision regarding the future of their pregnancy during the time of counselling, and 64 (46%) ultimately continued with their pregnancies. These outcomes support the need for a specific approach to crisis pregnancy situations such as that provided at the pregnancy centre and provide support for considering the crisis pregnancy an obstetric emergency.