Objective More and more women without child and female adolescents are undergoing medical abortion (MA), MA effect on subsequent pregnancy has been brought into focus. This research will evaluate the effect of MA on subsequent pregnancy.
Methods To searched Medline, Embase, Cochrane Library, Chinese Biomed-database, correlative websites and nine Chinese medical journals. The studies that were included in the reference list were additionally searched. Only RCTs (randomized control trials), CCTs (clinical control trials) and prospective cohort studies were included. Two researchers evaluated the quality of the literature and combined the evidence independently. Revman 4.1 was used for meta-analysis.
Results Eight prospective cohort studies with 2 934 cases were included. The incidences of miscarriage, postpartum hemorrhage and placental abnormality occurred in MA group were significantly lower than those occurred in SA group, and their OR (with 95%CI) were 0.42 (0.22 to 0.83), 0.58 (0.39 to 0.85) and 0.68 (0.54 to 0.87), respectively. No other significant differences were observed between the two artificial abortions groups. Though the tendency indicates that medical abortion has a probable influence on subsequent pregnancy, there was no significant difference about subsequent pregnancy between MA and first pregnancy.
Conclusion Unnecessary abortion should be avoided. MA is safer than SA on subsequent pregnancy, so MA is the preferred option for women without child and female adolescent to terminate their unwilling pregnancy. However, as all the studies included were prospective cohort studies, further high-quality RCTs should be conducted.
Citation： ZHOU Yan,LI Youping,LU Lin,WU Shangchun,LUO Jun. Systematic review of the effects of medical abortion on subsequent pregnancy. Chinese Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, 2003, 03(3): 186-194. doi: Copy