Causes of Different Types of Abortion in Women Referring To Educational and Medical Centers in Shiraz, Iran

Abortion in Iran, like some countries in the world, has long been a culturally, socially, politically and religiously sensitive issue. So the present study was conducted to investigate the causes of abortions in pregnant women referring to Shiraz educational and medical centers.

: In this cross-sectional study, 437 woman who had an abortion, were selected by examining 5176 pregnant women using sequential sampling method during 4 months from educational and forensic medicine centers in Shiraz, Iran, in 2017. A self-structured questionnaire including demographic characteristics and obstetric data was completed for each mother. Data analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics.

Out of 88 abortions with a legal permission from the forensic medicine, 9.1% were due to maternal illness and 90.9% were due to fetal disease, the most common cause of which was fetal cranial and cerebral disorders (17.1%). Out of 105 cases of spontaneous abortion, 8 cases were due to maternal cause (the most common cause of uterine defects (4.8%) and 97 cases were due to fetal cause. Out of 244 induced abortions with obstetric indication, the most common cause was missed abortion (32%).

In all three types of abortion, fetal causes were the most common cause of abortion.  It seems that education, access to information and awareness raising activities involving the whole community will have a significant effect on preventing the occurrence of abnormalities. Emphasis is placed on the importance of conducting prenatal screening before 20 weeks of gestation.