I'm very embarrassed and humiliated to ask this question but I need to know. In the past 15 years, I unfortunately had 3 abortions. The last one was in 1998-99. I am trying to get pregnant now and am very scared I wont be able to for this awful reason. Can you give me some professional knowledge on this, please?

First trimester terminations are rarely, if ever, associated with infertility or with miscarriage. Sadly, but understandably, many women carry a great deal of guilt with them about pregnancy terminations, and it is very common for those women to feel that they will be "punished" when they want to conceive because they chose not to continue with a prior pregnancy. This is not the case. An uncomplicated first trimester abortion is not associated with future fertility or pregnancy complications. We used to see women who emigrated to the US from Eastern European countries, where birth control was not readily available, with a history of as many as ten or twelve prior first trimester terminations, and they had uneventful pregnancies when they ultimately wanted to conceive. If an abortion is complicated by infection or damage to the cervix or uterine lining (which is more common in second trimester terminations) then there could be fertility problems or problems during the pregnancy but these can generally be anticipated and treated appropriately.

Answered by Dr. Lynn Friedman, M.D.