Elective pregnancy termination in a large cohort of women with hyperemesis gravidarum.

BACKGROUND: This study was conducted to describe characteristics of women who terminated their pregnancies secondary to hyperemesis gravidarum (HG).

STUDY DESIGN: Data were obtained from a survey provided on an HG Web site from 2003 to 2005.

RESULTS: Of 808 women who completed the survey, 123 (15.2%) had at least one termination due to HG, and 49 (6.1%) had multiple terminations. Prominent reasons given for the terminations were inability to care for the family and self (66.7%), fear that they or their baby could die (51.2%), or that the baby would be abnormal (22.0%). These same women were three times as likely to state that their health care providers were uncaring or did not understand how sick they were [64/123 (52.0%) vs. 168/685 (24.5%), odds ratio 3.34 (95% CI 2.21-5.05), p<.001].

CONCLUSION: These data suggest that the physical and psychological burden of HG has been underestimated, and that further education within the medical community may be warranted.