Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Jul 13:8:129-135.
doi: 10.2147/POR.S129464. eCollection 2017.

Abortion, an increasing public health concern in Ecuador, a 10-year population-based analysis

Esteban Ortiz-Prado  1   2   3   4 , Katherine Simbaña  5   6 , Lenin Gómez  5   6 , Anna M Stewart-Ibarra  4   7 , Lisa Scott  8 , Gabriel Cevallos-Sierra  9
Affiliations

Abortion, an increasing public health concern in Ecuador, a 10-year population-based analysis

Esteban Ortiz-Prado et al. Pragmat Obs Res. .

Abstract

Objectives: To describe the epidemiology of abortion in Ecuador from 2004 to 2014 and compare the prevalence between the public and the private health care systems.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional analysis of the overall mortality and morbidity rate due to abortion in Ecuador, based on public health records and other government databases.

Results: From 2004 to 2014, a total of 431,614 spontaneous abortions, miscarriage and other types of abortions were registered in Ecuador. The average annual rate of abortion was 115 per 1,000 live births. The maternal mortality rate was found to be 43 per 100,000 live births.

Conclusions: Abortion is a significant and wide-ranging problem in Ecuador. The study supports the perception that in spite of legal restrictions to abortion in Ecuador, women are still terminating pregnancies when they feel they need to do so. The public health system reported >84% of the national overall prevalence.

Keywords: clandestine abortion; metrotexate; misoprostol; private vs public health system; therapeutic abortion.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Annual number of abortions and births in Ecuador from 2004 to 2014. Notes: Left axis represents the number of abortions (black bars) and births (grey bars). Right axis represents the annual abortion rates per 1,000 live births (blue line).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Number of abortions from 2004 to 2014 per province in Ecuador. Note: The insert is a zoomed image of the Galapagos Islands, an archipelago located 200,000 miles off the coast of Ecuador with an estimated population of 25,000 people.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Overall accumulated abortion ratio by number of births among the provinces of Ecuador from 2004 to 2014. Note: The top 5 provinces are colored in orange bars.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Overall accumulated abortion rates and units of misoprostol sold from 2004 to 2014. Note: Correlation coefficient =0.63, p=0.069.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. The World Bank Population, total. 2014. [Accessed November 20, 2014]. Available from: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL#.
    1. World Health Organization . Estrategia de salud reproductiva. [Reproductive health strategy] Geneva: [Accessed December 1, 2016]. Available from: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/69040/1/WHO_RHR_04.8_spa.pdf.
    1. Pazol K, Zane SB, Parker WY, et al. Abortion surveillance–United States, 2008. MMWR Surveill Summ. 2011;60(15):1–41. - PubMed
    1. Goldman L, García S, Díaz J, Yam E. Brazilian obstetrician- gynecologists and abortion: a survey of knowledge, opinions and practices. Reprod Health. 2005;2:10. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sedgh G, Singh S, Hussain R. Intended and unintended pregnancies worldwide in 2012 and recent trends. Stud Fam Plann. 2014;45(3):301–314. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources