Medical termination of pregnancy, or non-surgical abortion, is a method of terminating a pregnancy without surgery, which makes it possible to minimize the likelihood of unwanted complications for a woman’s health.
Medical termination of pregnancy is allowed for up to 6-7 weeks of pregnancy.
Benefits of medical abortion
The main positive aspects of this method of termination of pregnancy include a high degree of efficiency, harmlessness to a woman’s health, minimal risks of complications that are characteristic of surgical termination of pregnancy.
Another advantage of medical abortion is that abortion can be performed early, which is very important in terms of minimizing the negative consequences of abortion. Medical termination of pregnancy avoids the possibility of contracting various infections, including HIV, hepatitis, etc.
This type of abortion is quite painless, the sensations are the same as during menstruation. Non-surgical abortions are performed in specialized institutions using pills. All drugs used are registered by the Pharmaceutical Committee of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation.
Safety of medical abortion
Proper use and the prescribed dosage allow achieving high safety of the drugs used, almost up to 100%. Medical termination of pregnancy is carried out only under the full supervision of a specialist. A prerequisite is a preliminary thorough examination. The survey includes:
- examining a woman
- smear analysis;
- determination of pregnancy by ultrasound.
Features of medical abortion
Medical termination of pregnancy is carried out in a hospital. Before an abortion, the absence of contraindications for abortion is revealed. In their absence and confirmation by the patient of the desire to terminate the pregnancy, she is checked for the absence of contraindications to taking specific drugs. The patient is provided with all information about the drugs, after which she signs the papers, agreeing that she received all the necessary information about medical abortion.
The patient takes pills and is under the supervision of doctors for the next 2-4 hours. After this time, the patient can be released home. If necessary, she can be given a prescription for contraception. The expulsion of the fetal egg can occur immediately in the clinic, or a few days after the medical termination of pregnancy, that is, after taking the drug, already at home and is accompanied by heavy bleeding up to 2 weeks.
Consequences of medical abortion
Depending on the drug used, the patient takes the drug either once or twice. If the drug is used twice, then the patient comes to the doctor 36-48 hours after the first dose. With a single dose, the next visit to the patient is scheduled in 12-15 days. During the last visit, a control examination of the patient by a doctor is performed to clarify whether the pregnancy was completely terminated.
With incomplete expulsion of the fetus, the patient is no longer offered a medical abortion, but a surgical one.
Contraindications for abortion
Contraindications to medical abortion are ectopic pregnancy, or pregnancy that develops against the background of the use of intrauterine contraception, after the abolition of hormonal contraception, in the presence of scar formations on the uterus. In addition to the above contraindications, there are contraindications to the specific drug used in medical abortion.