Demographic factors determining termination of pregnancy following the detection of lethal fetal malignancy

Abstract

Objective: To identify demographic and clinical variables differentiating pregnant Polish women who decided to terminate the pregnancy in the case of lethal fetal malformation from those who preferred to continue the pregnancy in such a situation.

Study design: Cross-sectional study.

Results: The group of women who decided to abort contained a higher fraction of multiparas than the group of patients who chose to continue their pregnancies, and was characterized by significantly lower mean gestational age at diagnosis of lethal fetal malformation. The only demographic variable approaching statistical significance was the presence of siblings, which was significantly more frequent amongst women who decided to terminate the pregnancy.

Conclusions: As the decision-making process on pregnancy termination is multimodal, pregnant women require particular support in the case of detecting lethal malformation in their fetuses.

• Abortion
• counseling
• decision making process
• determinants
• fetal malformation

Acknowledgements

All authors had substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, and analysis and interpretation of data. A. Michalik and K. Preis drafted the article and revised it critically for important intellectual content. All authors gave their final approval of the version to be published.