The Effect of Still Birth and Abortion on Women

The Effect of Still Birth and Abortion on Women
The pregnancy losses negatively affect a woman's health appears. There are a number of possible mechanisms: It is possible that a pregnancy loss results in a psychological conflict that consumes a mother's energy and leaves less strength available to deal with the exigencies of life. If a woman is distracted by the internal conflict of prolonged mourning she may be more likely to misinterpret information that provides critical input for decision making that affects her health.

If she is preoccupied with internal conflict and grief there is less opportunity to think rationally and freely about other aspects of her life, health and personal relationships. If losses are not mourned, depression (and consequently poor physical and mental health) is more likely to occur, there is evidence that depression interferes with the functioning of the immune system. More recent losses, and greater attachment to the ex-spouse, were associated with poorer immune function and greater depression.

Anxiety and depression are more likely to occur after the birth of a second child if the first one is aborted .The mother's disturbed psychological state may interfere with bonding to children following an unresolved pregnancy loss and also with breast-feeding. Although all pregnancy losses appear to adversely affect a woman's health, abortions seem to have a greater impact than do a similar number of miscarriages.

This finding agrees with that of Berkeley and Humphreys, who studied the number of visits by women to their family physician for a year prior to and a year following abortions. After the termination of pregnancy, they found there was an 80% increase in women visiting their doctor for all reasons, and 180% increase for psychosocial reasons. It could be argued that the women who undergo abortions are less well to begin with.

For all pregnancy losses, at least 25% of the women feel that they need professional help. Often this need is unrecognized and unresolved mourning goes untreated. It may be that women do not feel that they should report or complain about loss through a miscarriage or abortion. Abortions may be more difficult to mourn because abortion is considered too controversial to talk about. Possibly the public media's depiction of abortion as being hardly an important event makes women believe it is abnormal to grieve an aborted fetus.