Objective: To document aspects of the appearance of abortion found at Rattapum Hospital.
Material and Methods: A total of 126 patients who had abortion problems, and were treated from October 2000 through August 2004. Data were gathered from medical records and patients' register books. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.
Results: It was found that 70.6% of patients had spontaneous or threatened spontaneous abortion and 29.4% had aborted illegally. Most mothers were in the 26 years of age or less group (47.6%), with a greater number having had illegal abortion (51.4%) than spontaneous abortions (46.1%). Most of the mothers badly aborted during their first pregnancy (30.2%), especially among those having illegal abortions (37.8%). Almost half (46.1%) of the spontaneous group were only threatening abortion. Most of the illegal abortions were incomplete (64.9%). This group had severe complications coupled with a higher rate of complications (70.3%), especially those patients who had been operated on by non-physicians.
Conclusion: Illegal abortion patients were mostly young mothers in their first pregnancy. They mostly had incomplete abortions, performed by non-physicians and the incidence of complications was high.