Investigation of the prevalence and causes and of legal abortion of teenage married mothers in Iran
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Fatemeh Ghodrati
Abstract
Background
The therapeutic abortion law, in accordance with the fatwa issued by our Muslim jurisprudent approved by the parliament in 2005, has made major developments in dealing with cases of therapeutic abortions.
Objective
This study aimed at identifying the prevalence and causes of therapeutic abortion requests to the Legal Medicine Organization of Fars province, Shiraz, by pregnant teenager mothers.
Methods
This study was a retrospective, cross-sectional, descriptive survey. In this study, all documents related to therapeutic abortion requests from the Legal Medicine Organization of Fars province (southern Iran) from 2006 to 2013 were investigated. The total sample size included 1664, out of which 142 were teenagers. Sampling was carried out using Convenience method. Data were analyzed using SPSS statistical software, version 16, descriptive statistics and χ2.
Results
In this study, 142 mothers were under 20 years of age (8.5%). The prevalence of fetal abortion license requests was 110 (78.6%) and for maternal causes was 30 (21.4%). There was no significant statistical correlation between fetal causes in different years (p = 0.083).
The most common causes of fetal abortion request were for thalassemia treatment in 78 cases (79.9%) followed by fetal malformations (20.9%); also, the most common maternal cause was thalassemia in 14 cases (51.9%) and depression in three cases (1.11%), respectively.
Conclusion
Our results showed that after approval of therapeutic abortion law, requests for therapeutic abortion due to fetal causes are extensively increasing. There is still a need for coordination of judicial, medical and legal authorities for prompt notification.
Acknowledgments
This article is a part of Research Project (proposal No. 7745). The authors would like to thank the Student Research Committee of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences for their financial support. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Nasrin Shokrpour at Center for Development of Clinical Research of Nemazee Hospital for her editorial assistance.
Author contributions: MA contributed to the conception of the work, conducting the study, revising the draft, approval of the final version of the manuscript, and agreed with all aspects of the work FG and NS and SG agreed with all aspects of the work.
Authors conflict: No declared.
Declaration of interest: The authors have no conflicts to declare.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial
- Pelvic inflammatory disease: management requires a patient, prudent, prejudice-free provider
- A latent class approach to understanding patterns of peer victimization in four low-resource settings
- Validity and reliability of insomnia severity index and its correlation with pittsburgh sleep quality index in poor sleepers among Indian university students
- Original Articles
- Factors affecting oral health determinants in female university students: a cross-sectional survey in Saudi Arabia
- Patterns and predictors of disclosure of HIV positive status among youth living with HIV in Ibadan, Nigeria
- Teenage pregnancy – a study in São Tomé and Príncipe
- A case-control association study of 12 candidate genes and attempted suicide in French adolescents
- Characteristics, reasons, behavior and knowledge towards waterpipe smoking in Saudi Arabia
- Investigation of the prevalence and causes and of legal abortion of teenage married mothers in Iran
- Effect of a brief training program for primigravid adolescents on parenting self-efficacy and mother-infant bonding in the southeast of Iran
- Caring for adolescents in Guatemala: provider perspectives
- Blunted cortisol reactivity and risky driving in young offenders – a pilot study
- Comparing health promotion behaviors of male and female high school students in Southeast of Iran
- Sleep disorder prevalence in at-risk adolescents and potential effects of nightmare triad syndrome
- Meningococcal ACWY vaccine uptake and awareness among student freshers enrolled at Northern Ireland universities
- Seeking sexual health information? Professionals’ novel experiences of the barriers that prevent female adolescents seeking sexual health information
- Youth friendly communication in a transition clinic aimed at adolescents with chronic illness
- Retraction
- Retraction of: Characteristics of sleep habits among adolescents living in the city of Ribeirão Preto (SP)
