is one of the most common medical procedures performed in the United States each year. More than 40% of all women will end a pregnancy by abortion at some time in their reproductive lives.
While
women of every social class seek terminations, the typical woman who ends her pregnancy is either young, unmarried, poor, or over the age of 40.
Abortion:
Refers
to the termination of pregnancy at any stage that does not result in birth;
Medically,
abortion is typically defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo before fetal viability.
An
abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced. The term abortion most commonly refers to the induced abortion.
Abortion,
when induced in the developed world in accordance with local law, is among the safest procedures in medicine.
However,
unsafe abortions (those performed by persons without proper training or outside of a medical environment) result in approximately 70 thousand maternal deaths and 5 million disabilities per year globally.
Induced
abortion has a long history and has been facilitated by various methods like herbal abortifacients, the use of sharpened tools, physical trauma, and other traditional methods. Contemporary medicine utilizes medications and surgical procedures to induce abortion.
Home
pregnancy tests available at a drug store can indicate pregnancy early after conception. Terminations performed in this very early time frame have sometimes been termed menstrual extractions.
Abortions performed prior to nine weeks from the last menstrual period (seven weeks from conception) are performed either surgically (a procedure) or medically (with drugs).
From
nine weeks until 14 weeks, an abortion is performed by a dilatation and suction curettage procedure. After 14 weeks, surgical abortions are performed by a dilatation and evacuation procedure.
After
20 weeks of gestation, abortions can be performed by labor induction, prostaglandin labor induction, saline infusion, hysterectomy, or dilatation and extraction.
Most
abortions are performed in an outpatient office setting (doctor's office, ambulatory clinic) under local anaesthesia.
Medical
abortion is a term applied to an abortion brought about by medication taken to induce it. This can be accomplished with a variety of medications given either as a single pill or a series of pills.
Medical
abortion has a success rate that ranges from 75-95%, with about 2-4% of failed abortions requiring surgical abortion. . .
and
about 5-10% of incomplete abortions (not all tissue is expelled and it must be taken out by surgery), depending on the stage of gestation and the medical products used.
Medical
abortions can provide some measure of safety in that they eliminate the risk of injury to a woman's cervix or uterus from surgical instruments.
Some
women require an emergency surgical abortion, and, for safety concerns, ...
women
undergoing medical abortions need access to providers willing to perform a surgical abortion should it be necessary.
The
process of a medical abortion involves bleeding, often like a heavy menstrual period, which must be differentiated from haemorrhage (a serious problem).
Regardless
of the amount of tissue passed, the woman must see a doctor for evaluation to make sure the process is complete (and not an incomplete abortion).
DANGER
Any
pregnancy which takes place outside the uterus is called ectopic pregnancy. About 95% of pregnancies are located in the fallopian tube.
Other
ectopic pregnancy occur in the ovaries, horn of the uterus, cervix, and abdominal cavities.
Ectopic
pregnancies are caused by conditions that hinder or prevent the fertilized ovum from passing into the uterine cavity.