In Animals
Abortion occurs in all animals that experience pregnancy. There are a variety of known risk factors for it in non-human animals. For example, in sheep, it may be caused by crowding through doors, or being chased by dogs. In cows, spontaneous abortion may be caused by contagious disease, such as Brucellosis or Campylobacter, but often can be controlled by vaccination. Other diseases are also known to make animals susceptible. Spontaneous abortion occurs in pregnant Prairie Voles when their mate is removed and they are exposed to a new male, an example of the Bruce effect, although this effect is seen less in wild populations than in the laboratory. Female mice who had spontaneous abortions showed a sharp rise in the amount of time spent with unfamiliar males preceding the abortion than those who did not abort.
Read more about this topic: Miscarriage
Famous quotes containing the word animals:
“The vast results obtained by Science are won by no mystical faculties, by no mental processes other than those which are practiced by every one of us, in the humblest and meanest affairs of life. A detective policeman discovers a burglar from the marks made by his shoe, by a mental process identical with that by which Cuvier restored the extinct animals of Montmartre from fragments of their bones.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“There is no instant of time when one creature is not being devoured by another. Over all these numerous races of animals man is placed, and his destructive hand spares nothing that lives. He kills to obtain food and he kills to clothe himself; he kills to adorn himself; he kills in order to attack and he kills to defend himself; he kills to instruct himself and he kills to amuse himself; he kills to kill. Proud and terrible king, he wants everything and nothing resists him.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)