[Abortion (author's transl)]

Today the problem of abortion presents a fundamentally different aspect to the obstetrician in respect of causality, diagnosis and treatment, than 10 to 15 years ago. When giving advice to a pregnant woman at the beginning of treatment of a threatened abortion, or after abortion has taken place, it is important for the treating physician in the hospital and in obstetric practice to point out that according to recent studies conception of pregnancy does not necessary mean carrying the child to full term. With particular view to the mental encouragement and hope which a woman tries to find after an abortion, to enter into a new pregnancy, she must be told that recent studies have shown that only part of the pregnancies result in live births. Loss of a conceived pregnancy is mainly a matter of fate largely governed by chance, which she must share with many other women; that is to say, abortion is only very rarely due to an anatomic defect or to functional failure. The article explains the problems inherent in modern therapy of threatened abortion. By means of control of a fairly large group of patients treated by the author from impending abortion to actual birth, the article shows which chances apply to a woman admitted to hospital because of threatened abortion, of giving birth to a healthy child after appropriate treatment. Today the number of malformations in a group of patients with impending abortion and successful delivery, is in no way different from the internationally known standard of malformations after full-term pregnancy in a group of normal women.