Impact of childlessness on life and attitudes towards continuation of medically assisted reproduction and/or adoption.

Infertility and fertility treatment have the potential to impact and disrupt a couple's overall life. In order to study the associations between the impact of childlessness on one's life, and men and women's attitudes towards fertility treatment continuation and/or adoption, we analysed data from a one-year follow-up questionnaire in a prospective, longitudinal cohort study of consecutive couples initiating fertility treatment in Denmark. The study comprised 302 couples with no children at baseline and no joint children at one-year follow-up.

Freestanding midwifery unit versus obstetric unit: a matched cohort study of outcomes in low-risk women.

Objective: To compare perinatal and maternal morbidity and birth interventions in low-risk women giving birth in two freestanding midwifery units (FMUs) and two obstetric units (OUs).

Design: A cohort study with a matched control group.

Setting: The region of North Jutland, Denmark.

Danish registers on aspects of reproduction.

Introduction: The establishing of three Danish population-based registers, namely the Fertility Database, the Register of Legally Induced Abortions, and the In Vitro Fertilisation register, aimed at providing data for surveying of reproductive outcome.

Content: The registers include information on births, abortions, and assisted reproduction as well as selected characteristics of the women (and men) involved.

Validity And Coverage: Both the validity and coverage of each register are considered of high quality.

Reproductive patterns among Danish women with oral clefts.

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare reproduction patterns among Danish women born with isolated oral clefts versus the Danish background population.

Design And Setting: A nationwide population-based historic cohort study based on three registers: The Danish Facial Cleft Register, The Danish Civil Registration System, and the Fertility of Women and Couples Dataset.

Participants: Through linkages of the registers, the number of children and the exact age at childbirth of all Danish women born with an oral cleft from 1950 through 1988 (N = 1931) were obtained.

Are low Danish fertility rates explained by changes in timing of births?

Aims: The most commonly used indicator of fertility, the period total fertility rate (TFR(p)), tends to underestimate actual fertility when women delay childbearing. The objective of this study was to examine to which extent fluctuations in Danish fertility rates result from changes in timing of births and, thus, whether the conventional TFR(p) is a distorted indicator of fertility quantum. In addition, we investigated whether such changes in timing explained the observed regional differences in the TFR(p) in Denmark.

Induced abortion in Denmark: effect of socio-economic situation and country of birth.

Background: Equal access to health care is considered a key in Scandinavian healthcare policy. However, problematic differences between the socio-economic situation of immigrants and that of native Scandinavians are increasingly challenging this aspect of the Scandinavian welfare model. The present study focuses on how socio-economic characteristics and country of birth are associated with induced abortion.

Low birthweight and mortality: the tendency to repeat low birthweight and its association with early neonatal and infant morbidity and mortality.

Previous studies have demonstrated the tendency to repeat gestational age and birthweight in successive pregnancies and that this tendency is associated with infant survival. Thus, newborn outcome and survival is less favourable if the gestational age and size departs from this maternal tendency. This paper aims to study diseases or conditions that might be associated with this effect.

Changing lifestyles and oral clefts occurrence in Denmark.

Objective: The aim of this project was to assess whether any changes in the birth prevalence of cleft lip with/without cleft palate (CL[P]) occurred in Denmark during the period 1988 through 2001. In this period an official recommendation of a supplementation of folic acid to pregnant women was introduced; furthermore, smoking among pregnant women decreased considerably.

Design And Settings: There are few places in which ecological studies of oral clefts are possible.

Parent's age and the risk of oral clefts.

Background: Some malformations are clearly associated with older maternal age, but the effect of older age of the father is less certain. The aim of this study is to determine the degree to which maternal age and paternal age independently influence the risk of having a child with oral clefts.

Methods: Among the 1,489,014 live births in Denmark during 1973-1996, there were 1920 children with nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate and 956 children with nonsyndromic cleft palate.

Induced abortion in the Nordic countries: special emphasis on young women.

Background: To analyze the trends in legally induced abortions among women younger than 30 years in the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, since the liberalized abortion laws came into force.

Methods: Data stem from national registrations of vital events. Some have been published in the national vital statistics while others have been retrieved for this study.

Living conditions, contraceptive use and the choice of induced abortion among pregnant women in Denmark.

Aims: This study describes women with induced abortion and thereby elucidates how living conditions and contraceptive failure are associated with the choice of induced abortion in a population of Danish pregnant women.

Methods: The study population consisted of pregnant women attending Odense University Hospital. They were categorized in two groups: women with induced abortion (n = 373) and a reference group consisting of women with spontaneous abortion and antenatal care attendees (n = 2,176).

Poor semen quality may contribute to recent decline in fertility rates.

During past decades, we have witnessed a remarkable decline in fertility rates (number of births per 1000 women of reproductive age) in the industrialized world. It seems beyond doubt that the enormous social changes of our societies play the major role in this decline, but can it be attributed to changing social structures alone or is a reduced fecundity in the population also a factor? To address this we have focused on trends in teenage pregnancies (which to a large extent are unplanned). During the period in question fertility rates among 15-19 year old Danish women have been falling and the decline in fertility rate is not counterbalanced by an increase in the rate of induced abortion.

The prevalent use of contraception among teenagers in Denmark and the corresponding low pregnancy rate.

In Denmark the number of births and induced abortions among teenagers has reduced and teenage parenthood is now rare. This paper evaluates the correlation between this observed fertility and reported sexual and contraceptive behaviour. In 1989 a sample of 16-20-year-olds in Denmark was selected at random and personally interviewed about sexual and contraceptive behaviour.