Abortion at Gondar College Hospital, Ethiopia.

Objective: To review the pattern and magnitude of abortion in order to establish baseline facts and data for future studies.

Design: A descriptive cross-sectional study.

Setting: Gondar College of Medical Sciences Hospital, Gondar, Ethiopia.

Results: Most of the subjects originated from the Gondar city and were married housewives, parous and relatively young. The abortion rate and ratio per 100 pregnancies and deliveries were 11.5 and 16.4, respectively. Only 13.4% of the patients admitted history of interference with the pregnancy. Previous history of abortion was obtained in 10.6% of the patients. The mean gestational ages for septic and non-septic cases were 14.6 and 15.2 weeks, respectively even though pregnancies less than 12 weeks from the last normal menstrual period accounted for 50.5%. The commonly diagnosed clinical type was incomplete, followed by inevitable and threatened abortion. The vast majority of the clinical conditions were non-septic (85.1 %) and spontaneous(85.6 %). The most common complications registered were anaemia, genital tract infection, shock of various causes and soft tissue injury. Four mothers died of abortion-related complications. The mean hospital stays for non-septic and septic abortion were three and five days, respectively.

Conclusion: The study has attempted to address the issue of abortion in its general clinical pattern in relation to the various parameters. Being comprehensive, it also provides awareness and sensitivity on the magnitude of abortion and is assumed quite helpful for policy and decision makers.