[Abortion in adolescence: who committed it in Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil].

Source: PubMed, NCBI / U.S. National Library of Medicine

This quantitative and cross study aims at establishing a profile of female teenagers, from 12 to 19 years old, that committed abortion in a representative random sample of 2592 adolescents in Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil, in 2005. There were found 149 abortions, where most of them (81.9%) did not have a job, (85%) lived with the parents, (85.2%) were single, (69.8%) studied in a public school and (70.5%) were in high school. The majority had one abortion 93%, but it stands out that 8.5% of them aborted twice and 2.6% four times, showing this data the inadequate attention to teenagers reproductive health. In order to have an abortion, 63.8% of them had support, 83.9% did not have physical complications and 89.3% did not need hospitalization. The conclusion is that the teenagers are getting pregnant and still attending school, looking for abortion as a solution for a not planned pregnancy and that the lack of need of hospitalization post abortion contributes to the statics lack.