[Late pregnancy interruption in Noord-Holland. I. Incidence and abnormalities]

To gain insight into the extent to which late termination of pregnancy (gestational age > 24 weeks) is practised and to find out what foetal diseases and abnormalities lead to termination.

An exploratory, descriptive, retrospective study.

Province of North Holland, the Netherlands.

An investigation, based on an anonymous printed questionnaire, was conducted among all associations/departments of gynaecologists in the 21 hospitals in North Holland. The period of study covered the years 1990 to 1994 inclusive.

Replies, in the form of completed questionnaires, were received from 19 associations/departments in the 21 hospitals (90% response). In the five-year period under study 103 pregnancies in 14 of the hospitals were terminated beyond the 24th week. In 21% of the cases anencephaly was diagnosed prior to the termination; another 21% of the foetuses were diagnosed as having severe chromosomal defects. Other severe abnormalities were neural groove defects like hydrocephaly and/or spina bifida (16%), no renal function (12%) and skeletal abnormalities (11%).

Late termination of pregnancy appears to be practised on a substantial scale, at any rate in North Holland. The reasons for termination are severe structural abnormalities which in most of the cases are not compatible with extrauterine survival.