Bone Fragments Left from Aborted Babies Can Cause Infertility.

Bone fragments left in women's uteruses after abortions cause some cases of infertility and should be treated using ultrasound to make sure all the tiny pieces are removed, according to researchers at the University of Ottawa.

The researchers, Kimberly Elford and Paul Claman of the Division of Reproductive Medicine at Ottawa Hospital, published a case report in the April issue of Fertility and Sterility describing the treatment and its success.

"Our case stresses the need to perform endovaginal ultrasound in all women who present with secondary infertility who had a previous pregnancy that progressed beyond 11 weeks gestation and then ended in spontaneous or therapeutic abortion," the authors write.

Small pieces of bone from babies killed in their mothers' wombs can become embedded in the uterus, leading to irritation and the inability of future embryos to implant and grow, the report states.

The problem can occur when an unborn baby is aborted after about 12 weeks of pregnancy, when the bones have already begun to harden.

Although doctors have been aware of this problem for years, it has long been considered a rare occurrence or that the fragments could also be caused by the hardening of tissue due to inflammation or trauma. That view may be changing, according to Elford and Claman.

"Recently, it has been suggested that the incidence of this complication, after induced or spontaneous abortions, was underestimated in the literature," the authors write. A study in the 1990s "found more than 50 cases in the literature, with 80% of them occurring after pregnancy."