Dear ProLife Colleage, A new study of the medical records for nearly half a million women in Denmark reveals significantly higher maternal death rates following abortion compared to delivery. This finding has confirmed similar large-scale population studies conducted in Finland and the United States, https://www.aaplog.org/complications-of-induced-abortion/induced-abortion-and-maternal-mortality/induced-abortion-and-natural-cause-maternal-death/ but contradicts the widely held belief that abortion is safer than childbirth. This recently accepted study related to reproductive history and mortality rates using national data from Denmark was just published in the Medical Science Monitor (impact factor 1.7) and is available for free download: http://www.medscimonit.com/fulltxt.php?ICID=883338, The title of the paper is “Short and Long Term Mortality Rates Associated with First Pregnancy Outcome: Population Register Based Study for Denmark 1980-2004” The objectives of the study were to examine mortality rates associated with first pregnancy outcome and to explore differences in mortality rates associated with early abortion and late abortions (after 12 weeks). The population was comprised of a total of 463,473 Danish women who had their first pregnancy between 1980 and 2004 (2,238 died across the full study period). Compared to women who carried their first pregnancy to term, after adjusting for age and birth year, the cumulative risk of death for women who had a 1st trimester abortion was significantly higher in all periods examined from 180 days (84%) through 10 years (39%). The risk of death was likewise significantly higher for women who had abortions after 12 weeks from one year (331%) through 10 years (141%) when compared to women who delivered a first pregnancy. Finally, for women who miscarried, the risk was significantly higher for cumulative deaths through 4 years (75%) and at 10 years (48%). Why is this study important? 1) Record-based studies provide complete reproductive history data for all residents. There are very few record-based studies of mortality risks associated with reproductive loss available in the published literature. Without data-linkage to complete reproductive histories (as in this study), results are highly unreliable as prior research suggests as many as 73% of all pregnancy associated deaths are not apparent from death certificates. 2) This study eliminates the potential confounding effect of unknown prior pregnancy history by examining mortality rates associated with first pregnancy outcome alone. 3) No previous record-based studies have compared early induced abortions to later abortions. There is consensus that late-term abortions are associated with more physiological risks and higher rates of maternal mortality in the short term compared to early abortions. However, longer term mortality risks have not been previously examined with record-based data. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx FYI: four World Expert Consortium for Abortion Research and Education (WECARE) affiliates (Drs. Byron Calhoun, Monique Chireau, Elard Koch, and Priscilla Coleman) will be speaking at the International Symposium on Maternal Health in Dublin this Saturday September 8th (http://www.symposiummaternalhealth.com). Please consider attending if you’re able and remember to check the WECARE site for the latest updates: www.wecareexperts.org!
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