Elective pregnancy termination in a large cohort of women with hyperemesis gravidarum.
BACKGROUND
This study was conducted to describe characteristics of women who terminated their pregnancies secondary to hyperemesis gravidarum (HG).


METHODS
Data were obtained from a survey provided on an HG Web site from 2003 to 2005.


RESULTS
Of 808 women who completed the survey, 123 (15.2%) had at least one termination due to HG, and 49 (6.1%) had multiple terminations. Prominent reasons given for the terminations were inability to care for the family and self (66.7%), fear that they or their baby could die (51.2%), or that the baby would be abnormal (22.0%). These same women were three times as likely to state that their health care providers were uncaring or did not understand how sick they were [64/123 (52.0%) vs. 168/685 (24.5%), odds ratio 3.34 (95% CI 2.21-5.05), p<.001].


CONCLUSIONS
These data suggest that the physical and psychological burden of HG has been underestimated, and that further education within the medical community may be warranted.
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA.
Borzouyeh
B
Poursharif
Lisa M
LM
Korst
Kimber W
KW
Macgibbon
Marlena S
MS
Fejzo
Roberto
R
Romero
T Murphy
TM
Goodwin
D000032:Abortion, Therapeutic / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D006939:Hyperemesis Gravidarum / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011247:Pregnancy; D012042:Registries