Abortion is said to be the last resort for a woman who has an unplanned pregnancy. Abortion should be considered only after considering all other options. An abortion can be quite taxing for the woman. In all abortive methods the remnants of placenta are to be removed from the body of the woman. Some of the safe abortion methods are given here, read on.It is very important to understand here, there is no “safe”
abortion method or
method for terminating pregnancy per se. the only relevant point is that a few methods can be less taxing on the woman compared to the rest which can potentially harm the reproductive faculty for life.
Abortion Methods or Methods for Terminating Pregnancy
Among the so-called safe abortion methods or methods for terminating pregnancy, here are a few of them.
Dilation and Curettage (D & C Procedure)
Dilation and curettage is also known as D & C procedure. Apart from being an abortion method, the doctor resort to it for the treatment of different uterine conditions unrelated to pregnancy. As an abortive method, the doctor stretches the neck of the womb or the cervix of the woman thereby causing either a premature delivery or death of the fetus. The womb is then examined and cleaned of the remains of the fetus and there is this risk of subsequent hemorrhage and sepsis. It is rather a natural follow-through of a complete abortion.
Vacuum Aspiration
This is a suction method where a vacuum device is used to dismember or tear apart the fetus. The vacuum aspiration is considered to be a very archaic surgical technique. Here, the surgeon inserts a plastic tube inside the womb through the cervix after stretching is wide open with the help of a stretching device.
The tip of the tube has some sharp-edged openings that dismember the baby. The suction tube that is attached to it evacuates the remains and the placenta from the woman’s womb. This is an early abortion technique that abortion promoters believe to be “safe”. Most of the vacuum aspiration abortions are performed within the 13-19 week of pregnancy and often other instruments and devices are used to bring out the remaining parts of the fetus that are too large to pass through the suction tube.
The woman does recover after a while and it is necessary to note that most abortions take place due to non-medical reasons and the women too are quite young. Thus recovery also reaps the benefit of young age and there are no detailed reports of the potential health risks suffered by the woman following the abortion in the long run.
Hysterotomy
This abortion procedure is not very popular and is akin to the caesarian section surgery. A medically alive fetus is brought out of the mother’s womb by cutting open the mother’s abdomen. In some states like Britain, these fetuses are allowed to survive as a legal duty on the part of the performing surgeon, but in most cases where abortion is sought, the fetuses are left to die. This method is a termination of pregnancy through deliberately destroying the baby after removing it from the womb. The baby is killed by cutting the umbilical cord that supplies oxygen to the fetus.
There can be a number of risks involved in this abortion method like thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and the scar that can threaten a successful future pregnancy.
Salt Poisoning
In this abortion technique, a concentrated salt solution is injected into the amniotic fluid of the woman’s womb and is performed after four months of pregnancy term. It is the cheapest technique where the abortion happens within an hour. A day after the injection is administered; the woman delivers a dead baby. The potential health risk to the mother is very intensive and largely unexplained.
Prostaglandin
This abortion method requires the use of a prostaglandin drug. There is a risk of hemorrhage and infection and a surgical intervention is more likely to remove the remnants of the placenta after the abortion. The drug causes violent contractions of the womb and expels the fetus thereby killing it. Another drug is injected after the process so as to ensure the death of the fetus.
