ABORTION IN RELATION TO SOME SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS

Abstract

The data for this study has been collected from a questionnaire examining the relationship between birth weight of the new born and some physical and socio-economic characteristics of the mother. Between Dec.1975 to Jan.1976, 1553 women who had referred to two hospitals in Tehran for labor: 981 to Farah Maternity and 572 to Firoozgar Hospital have been interviewed. The results of the study have indicated that women who had referred to Firoozgar Hospital, were older, more literate, had higher per capita income, used more contraceptives and had fewer pregnancies, all these figures are statistically significant. Regression analysis indicates that factors such as age of the mother, literacy, household income, husband's job position are not significant towards increase of abortion rate amongst these women, but when these factors are fixed and place of reference is analyzed this variable becomes significant, increase of abortion, which have not been considered in this study. Parity regardless of the above factors increases abortion rate and for each increase in the number of pregnancy, mean number of abortion is increased by 0.09.