There is no significant link between abortions and an increase in mental health problems, a Danish study suggests.
Thanks to health information available on Denmark’s national registry, researchers were able to look at mental health details for 84,620 women who had a first-trimester abortion, and 280,930 women who gave birth for the first time, reports the Los Angeles Times.
The women who chose to have abortions tended to have higher rates of mental illness in general, but the number of psychiatric visits did not significantly increase after the procedure. One percent of these women had visited a mental health professional prior to the procedure, compared to the 1.5 percent who made at least one visit after.
The rate was similar for women experiencing first-time childbirth. Of these women, 0.3 percent had visited a mental health professional before giving birth, while 0.7 percent sought help within the first year of motherhood.
"I believe that the higher rates of psychiatric care can be interpreted as a sign that women having abortions are at a vulnerable time in their lives. But we do not know exactly why this difference is present," said Trine Munk-Olsen, lead author of the study.
These findings are consistent with a number of previous studies, none of which have found any causal link between abortion and mental illness.