�A labor force of the American Psychological Association has terminated there is no significant evidence that a single elective miscarriage increases
the risk of mental health problems for adult women.
The draft Report of the APA Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion is dated 13 August 2008 and was published online on the APA website on
18th August. It was presented to the APA's governing Council of Representatives at the association's Annual Convention in Boston which finished on
Sunday.
Chair of the Task Force, Dr Brenda Major, said they set up that the best scientific evidence suggests that among adult women who feature an unintentional
pregnancy:
"The relative risk of mental wellness problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester miscarriage or deport that gestation."
"The evidence regarding the relative mental health risks associated with multiple abortions is more than uncertain," she added.
The Task Force, which started in 2006, reviewed all the empirical studies available in English and published in peer-reviewed journals since 1989 that
either compared the mental health of women who elective to make an abortion with counterparts that did not, or investigated predictors of genial
health for US women who elective to have an abortion.
They found that many of the studies had serious methodological problems, varied in quality, and failed to control for potentially confounding factors,
so they focussed only on those whose methods were the best.
While there is some grounds that women experience feelings of loss, sadness and grief subsequently an miscarriage, and some have "clinically significant
disorders, including depression and anxiety", the task force launch there was "no evidence sufficient to support the claim that an ascertained association
'tween abortion history and mental health was caused by the miscarriage per se, as opposed to other factors."
The labor force aforesaid there was evidence that other factors came into play, regardless of the outcome of a maternity, and that failure to take these into
account led to misleading links between abortion history and mental wellness problems. These other coinciding risk factors were things like being
exposed to violence, a history of drug or alcohol use, poverty, a history of emotional problems, and old unwanted births. These predisposed
women to have both unwanted pregnancies, or mental health problems after a pregnancy, aforementioned the the task
They said "world-wide statements about the psychological impact of abortion tush be deceptive", because women have abortions for wads of unlike
reasons under different personal, social, cultural and economic circumstances, all of which affect a woman's mental state later an abortion.
The task power said they did find evidence that the women who were most likely to get negative psychological reactions after an abortion were
women who concluded a precious pregnancy, or who felt under pressure sensation from others to receive a end point, or wHO felt they had to keep their abortion
secret from their family and friends for fear of stigma.
The written report pointed prohibited that few studies included comparison groups to address the crucial issue of understanding the mental health implications of
abortion compared to other alternatives such as having and keeping the baby or adoption.
The task force said bettor and more rigourously intentional studies were needed, peculiarly in deference of deuce things: (1) separating out the personal effects of
confounding factors and, (2) establishing relative risks of having an abortion compared to the alternatives.
The conclusions are alike to a literature review published by the APA in 1990.
"Report of the APA Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion"
Brenda Major, Mark Appelbaum, Linda Beckman, Mary Ann Dutton, Nancy Felipe Russo, and Carolyn West.
American Psychological Association, Report dated 13 Aug 2008, published online 18 Aug 2008.
Click here to view full report (PDF).
Source: APA.
Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
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