The Effects Of Abortion Restrictions On Women Who Miscarry

We live in a world where the headline “Roe v. Wade Overturned” reads like a sucker punch. This landmark ruling, overturned on Friday, June 24, didn’t just impact abortion rights but also had implications for other aspects of reproductive health, including the effects of abortion restrictions on women who miscarry. Amidst the ensuing worry and discussions, one doctor decided to break the silence about this overlooked issue on Instagram.

Miscarriage patients would be negatively affected if they were denied access to abortion procedures, as Dr. Marta Perez explains in a now-viral video. Dr. Perez describes the three primary options available to women experiencing a miscarriage: taking an abortion pill, taking a miscarriage drug, or undergoing a surgical abortion.

Natural Miscarriage

Dr. Perez lists three methods for handling a miscarriage. The first, a natural miscarriage, occurs when the uterus spontaneously empties its contents. This is often a fast procedure, but complications do arise. If the miscarriage was incomplete and not all of the material was passed, this could take a few days. It may take several weeks and medical intervention in the case of a missed miscarriage.

“What the doctor means is what we in medicine call ‘expectant management.'” To paraphrase Dr. Nicole Williams, M.D., FACOG, FACS, owner of Gynecology Institute of Chicago and author of This Is How You Vagina, “We do this when it looks like most of the baby’s products have already left the body, and there may only be blood like a period.” The lack of convenient access to a primary care physician or an emergency room can be life-threatening. It’s possible that a return to bleeding or infection could occur if some supplies are still available. Therefore, information and access are crucial for expectant management.

Treatment Options for a Miscarriage

In this video, Dr. Perez defines medical management and describes the important function that abortion pills play in ensuring a patient’s safety during a miscarriage.

Mifepristone, widely known as the abortion pill, and misoprostol, also known as the miscarriage tablet, make up the most successful combination. Elective abortion and political influence in the FDA are the sole reasons for mifepristone’s use limits. In the video’s description, Dr. Perez explains that not all doctors are able to provide mifepristone, forcing some women to settle for less effective therapies like misoprostol on their own.

By 2020, the Guttmacher Institute predicts that pharmaceutical abortions will account for more than half of all abortions in the United States. Studies have demonstrated that mifepristone is safe to use after 10 weeks of pregnancy, even though the FDA has only licensed it for use up to that point. If a patient chooses to have an abortion with medicine, they will first take mifepristone, which terminates the pregnancy, and then misoprostol, which facilitates the passage of the fetal remains.

Most women who choose to induce a miscarriage do so with the help of mifepristone and misoprostol. Dr. Williams tells Parents that mifepristone efficiently blocks the pregnancy-sustaining hormone progesterone and that misoprostol produces contractions. Due to its development for gastrointestinal purposes, misoprostol is readily available, but mifepristone is not, even in the relatively safe state of Illinois, where I currently reside. Because of stringent FDA regulations, mifepristone cannot be sold at conventional pharmacies.

Alternatives to Mifepristone

Mifepristone’s role in voluntary abortions has led to strict regulation of the drug. Some people could mistake it for Plan B, an over-the-counter emergency contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration. When used properly and by patients weighing less than 165 pounds, Plan B, an emergency contraceptive drug, has an effectiveness rate of up to 89 percent in preventing pregnancies that would otherwise occur within 72 hours of sexual activity. However, mifepristone is a drug that can terminate a pregnancy once it has begun.

Medication management choices’ risk-freeness.

Medication for miscarriage management poses no health risks. But this doesn’t mean that the decision should be made without first talking to a medical expert. This is the scary pith of the political situation for patients experiencing a miscarriage: if abortion services are restricted, including mifepristone, misoprostol, and surgery, women who require medical treatment may be injured.

Abortion pills are a very safe option for women. Dr. Williams reveals, “In a Planned Parenthood study that analyzed data from over 200,000 women, the only fatality was the result of an ectopic pregnancy.”

Dr. Williams continues by saying that getting an abortion required physically visiting a clinic to acquire the medicine. However, things have altered since the pandemic. Abortion drugs can now be delivered to patient’s doorsteps.

During that time, the federal authorities authorized the shipment of mifepristone via mail; the policy shift is now being made permanent. The largest obstacle to care is getting the word out now that the drug can be ordered safely online. Dr. Williams says, “I think here is where we need to widen our reach.

Medical Procedures for Treating a Miscarriage

Miscarriage can also be treated surgically, which is the third alternative. A dilation and curettage (D&C) is a surgical operation in which the cervix is widened, and the uterine lining and contents are scraped or scooped out.

Dr. Perez affirmed this, writing, “General anesthesia can be used in the operating room to do a D&C,” in the caption of an Instagram video he shared. However, the same procedure can be performed at the patient’s bedside under regional anesthesia in an outpatient medical office using a manual vacuum aspirator (MVA) device. Most early abortions in the first trimester are done with an MVA. Many OB-GYNs aren’t familiar with VMAs, so a D&C may be the only choice. Scheduling the surgery room is more difficult and can take a few days to a week. This can cause care to be delayed. Abortion care is separate from standard OB-GYN care and training, so scheduling the operating room can take a few days to a week.

An alternative for treatment that is both common and simple is surgical intervention. Planned Parenthood asserts that surgery is one of the safest medical procedures available and that surgical therapy has no correlation to sterility. That is to say; your fertility won’t be affected in any way by the abortion operation itself.

Miscarriage treatment is often identical to abortion care for the individual experiencing it, and this cannot be emphasized enough. Women who are giving birth and need medical assistance during a miscarriage may be put in danger if they are denied access to safe reproductive health care.

A miscarriage is a medical emergency that has nothing to do with the pregnancy itself. A miscarriage is an early warning sign that something is wrong with the pregnancy. It’s quite prevalent, but the reasons why it occurs aren’t always clear. When mifepristone and misoprostol are used together, patients heal much faster than when treated with “watchful waiting,” which can lead to problems like long-term bleeding, anemia, and infections. We can’t provide adequate treatment if we’re prevented from treating patients who need these drugs.

Meaningful articles you might like: Miscarriage After A Healthy Pregnancy, 8 Miscarriage-Related Things Not to Say and What to Say Instead, 10 Ways To Minimize Your Risk of Miscarriage