As you already know abortion is the process of getting read off a fetus from your body. A fetus is when the pregnancy has not fully formed into a baby. This is in the first three months of your pregnancy. This is best done through medical means, that is using a pill to expel the fetus.
But abortion can also take place when the baby is fully formed (after three months) but this has to be done for serious reasons such as the mother facing problems, the unborn baby having deformities, the unborn baby is as a result of rape or incest. This is best done using surgical means in the hospital.
Medical Abortion
In this process a lady is given a pill to either swallow or to insert in the vagina. Either of the two processes is effective.
Medical abortion is recommended for early pregnancies. The drugs that are administered usually start contractions and expel the fetus. The drugs expel the fetus by denying it blood, weakening its attachment to the womb and finally causing contractions and then light bleeding. This process usually happens within a few hours after taking the drugs.
When not to go for medical abortion:
- When your pregnancy is later than 12 weeks, you should consider going for surgical termination.
- If the pregnancy lies outside the uterus, it is recommended that you go for surgical abortion.
- If you are on other medication for other ailments, avoid going for medical abortion.
- If you have heart conditions you should also consider going for other abortion methods other than medical ones.
Safety of Medical abortion:
Medical abortion is the safest method of terminating a pregnancy in the world and in South Africa in particular. The majority of women who go through this process often succeed without complications. It is the very, very few that will get complications and need surgery. That is 9.9 out of ten will have a successful medical abortion. The condition is that it must be done during the first weeks of pregnancy.
Surgical Abortion:
This is a process where the fetus is evacuated from the clinic using instruments. This is best done in hospitals and it is the recommended late stage method of abortion. It can be done through one of the methods below. You should find out more about them if you are interested but these are processes we do not perform and therefore we shall not discuss them.
- Suction Aspiration
- Dilation & Curettage
- Dilation & Evacuation
- Induction Abortion
- Dilation and Extraction