Abortion increases risk of subsequent premature birth

From LifeNews.com comes this interesting report about studies linking abortions with an increased with subsequent premature births:

November is Prematurity Awareness Month, dedicated by activists to highlighting the risks of and impact created by preterm birth. According to the March of Dimes, more than half a million babies are born prematurely in the United States alone each year.
Yet most people — including women at risk of abortion and their loved ones — are unaware that abortion has been linked to an increased risk of preterm birth among subsequently born babies.

In a paper published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 2009, a Canadian research team examined data from 37 studies and found that having a prior abortion increased the risk of subsequent preterm birth by 36 percent, while having more than one prior abortion increased the risk by 93 percent. (Preterm birth is defined as a birth that takes place before 37 weeks gestation.)

In other words, children whose mothers had a previous abortion were more likely to be born prematurely, putting them at greater risk for problems such as low-birth weight (which has been linked to physical and developmental problems), epilepsy, autism, mental retardation and cerebral palsy. A research team looking at data from 2002 estimated that prior abortions led to 1,096 cases of cerebral palsy among babies born prematurely that year [more].

Citations are provided at the jump.