Just weeks after the United States Supreme Court overturned a prior ruling protecting abortion rights nationally, a new analysis on the etiologies behind the termination of pregnancy (TOP) offers more insight on the polarizing topic. 

The retrospective analysis consisted of reviewing nearly 500 pregnancy terminations over a 10-year period. Using the patients’ medical records and reports, experts concluded that just over 11% of pregnancies were subject to elective termination. All others were the result of multiple factors that rendered the pregnancy nonviable, including severe structural anomalies. 

Corresponding author of the study Ching Hua Hsiao, of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Taipei City Hospital, Women and Children Campus in Taiwan, and colleagues elaborated on the importance of advancing our understanding of fetal death, suggesting that improvements could ease the decision-making burden on patients, families and providers: 

“An improvement in technique measuring vital status, birth weight,and gestational age, as well as a smooth communication between healthcare providers and pregnant women and their families are key to advance the stillbirth data, to eliminate preventable stillbirths and to ameliorate the burden on families.”