©Pregnancy bliss 2008
Consequences of Pregnancy Concealment (continued from previous page)
In January 2007, the BBC reported from Ghana (where pregnancy termination is illegal) that official figures there show that 30% of all maternal deaths each year are due to illegal abortion.
For those women who conceal pregnancies with no intention of termination, the potential problems are of a different nature. What binds these women, wherever they might be in the world, is the fact that they do not get any sort of antenatal care. In fact many of them will also make arrangements that they give birth alone, without any sort of help.
The absence of antenatal or intrapartum (during labor) care means the lives of both mother and baby is put in peril. It is true that most pregnancies and deliveries do progress without a hitch. Unfortunately some women with concealed pregnancies will experience complications which could and in some cases does lead them to lose both their lives and that of the baby. Even where delivery is uneventful, tragically, some newborns are abandoned by their mothers soon after birth in a determined effort to carry on with the concealment. Many of these babies perish.
Pregnancy termination remains a hugely controversial subject throughout the world. You will be hard pushed to find anybody who is enthusiastic about it. However, it has to be acknowledged that availability of safe pregnancy termination services in many, mainly developed countries, has saved countless lives. However, there is no denying the fact that, sheer numbers continue to cause a great deal of distress to all those interested in the subject. Figures released by the Department of Health in Britain in June 2008 show that, yet again, the previous year, 2007, had a record number of terminations at a shade under 200,000.
In the United States, figures from 2005 show that approximately half of all pregnancies are unintended and that almost 20% of all pregnancies ended in abortion amounting to almost 1.2 million terminations. Even though this continues the downward trend observed over the last few years, the absolute numbers are still extremely high. More disturbingly, rates of unplanned pregnancy and abortion are still going up in those in the low income groups.
Pregnancy concealment is a huge and complex social issue rather than a medical one. As shown above, there are several varied strands that influence this.
Hover on the world map below to see the abortion legal situation by country
