Abstract

Objectives: Globally about one in five pregnancies will end in an abortion and lifetime average is about one abortion per woman. The objective of our study is to describe the cases of pregnancy termination in our center and their social and economic background.

Materials and Methods: We present 2456 cases of pregnancy termination during a 7-year-time period (2012 - 2019). The number of births during the same time frame in our hospital was 28308. This produces an abortion rate of 8%. The age of these patients varied from 14 to 48 years. Their marital status was 55.7% married, 39.9% single, 3.7% divorced and 0.7% widowed.

Results: Geographic distribution of women presented: European 77.4%, African 10.2%, Asian 10.7%, American 1.1% and Australian 0.6%. Domestic population covers 38% of the cases. Adolescents were 3% of the cases. Most women originated from Albania. The parity of women presenting for abortion was varying from null (30%) to more than 3 (13,2%), with one and two accounting for 26,7% and 30,1% respectively.

Conclusion: Evaluating conditions leading to pregnancy termination helps forming family planning strategies. The community must invest in a combined approach, essentially focusing not only on abortion service provision, but also on preventive aspects, such as continuous education and access to appropriate form of contraceptives.

Keywords: Pregnancy Termination; Abortion; Migration; Family Planning Center

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