Highlights:
- Women in the health and social services industries had the highest chance of not having a live birth
- Manufacturing, wholesale/retail commerce, education, and public/social/personal service occupations all had higher rates of no live births
- Manufacturing and health/social work jobs were linked to a higher probability of early abortion than financial and insurance jobs
Certain jobs were associated with greater risks of miscarriage and stillbirth in a study of more than 1.8 million working and unemployed pregnant women in South Korea from 2010 to 2019.
Researchers evaluated risks for three poor outcomes for the study, which was published in the
Journal of Occupational Health: early abortive outcomes (miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, and molar pregnancy), stillbirth, and no live birth (pregnancy with no record of live birth thereafter, which include early abortive outcomes and stillbirth).
Do Working Mothers have an Increased Risk of Abortion
Overall, 18.0%, 0.7%, and 39.8% of pregnancies resulted in an early abortion, stillbirths, or no live births, respectively. Non-working women had a higher risk of early abortions and stillbirths than working women while working women had a higher rate of no live births.
Women's Profession Linked with Risk of Stillbirth
Women in the health and social work fields were most likely to have no live births. Manufacturing, wholesale/retail commerce, education, and public/social/personal service occupations all had higher rates of no live births. Manufacturing and health/social work jobs were linked to a higher probability of early abortion than financial and insurance jobs.
‘The study examined data from more than 1.8 million employed and unemployed pregnant women from 2010 to 2019 and discovered that 18.0% of pregnancies terminated in early abortions, 0.7% in stillbirths, and 39.8% in no live births.
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“The good news is that the Ministry of Employment and Labor of South Korea is now revising the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act to cover all the abortive outcomes in pregnant women workers. Our study contributed to the amendment of this Act, as we presented the impact of the occupational environment on adverse pregnancy outcomes,” said corresponding author Jung-won Yoon, MD, of the National Medical Center in Seoul.
Source-Medindia