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. 1982 Nov-Dec;73(6):396-400.

Early complication risks of legal abortions, Canada, 1975-1980

S Wadhera
  • PMID: 7159852

Early complication risks of legal abortions, Canada, 1975-1980

S Wadhera. Can J Public Health. 1982 Nov-Dec.

Abstract

PIP: In Canada, about 3% of the women obtaining legal abortions were reported to have experienced 1 or more early complications(s) of abortion. This and other findings in this paper are based on a study of about 352,000 therapeutic abortions performed on women in Canada during 1975-80. The abortion complication rate declined by 25% from a rate of 3.2/l00 in 1975 to under 2.4 in 1980. The abortion complication rate was highest for women under age 20 (4.1), being 1.5 times the complication rate for women ages 20-24 and twice the complication rate for those 25-29. The risk of early complications of abortion increased with the gestation period. For women obtaining abortions at 13 weeks or beyond, the risk of early complication(s) was 10 times greater than the risk for women obtaining abortions under 13 weeks gestation. The abortion complication rates were considerably lower for instrumental evacuation procedures than for instillation procedures. The abortion complication rates for various procedures were: menstrual extraction 0.4; suction dilatation and curettage (D and C), 0.8; surgical D and C, 1.7; hysterotomy, 9.1; saline 22.4; prostaglandin, 29.0; and urea, 30.9. (author's)

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