Late Term Abortion: What Should You Know About It!

Recently updated on February 11th, 2023 at 12:00 pm

Late-Term-Abortion

When a woman undergoes a termination of pregnancy in her third trimester of pregnancy, it is called late-term abortion. In this stage, the pregnancy is generally almost fully developed. The new term abortion is never recommended even by surgeons and medical experts. It is because of the complications involved in the new term abortions.

Performing an abortion is safe up to 21 weeks of gestation. If you decide to end the pregnancy in the first nine weeks of pregnancy, you can easily find an online abortion pill and administer it at home. For a second-trimester pregnancy, termination, and surgical abortion can end an unwanted pregnancy under 21 weeks.

For the third trimester, neither medical nor surgical abortion is suitable for pregnancy termination. Especially if there are no health complications involved, doctors suggest continuing the pregnancy. After 21 weeks of pregnancy gestation, ending it with either method becomes very complex, which also involves fatal risks.

However, late-term abortions do take place, especially when there’re severe health risks to the mother in continuing the pregnancy. The following are the ways late-term abortions are performed.

  • Evacuation
  • Dilation

The aforementioned procedures of surgical abortion are always performed at a clinic or hospital. When you end the pregnancy in the first trimester, you can end it at home and enjoy the pregnancy. Mifepristone and Misoprostol are some abortion pills that are safe to consume at home. However, in the case of surgical abortion, you have to visit the clinic and get the pregnancy ended under experts’ guidance.

What to expect?

Since surgical abortion can have multiple complications, healthcare providers typically keep the woman under observation to understand the possible difficulties. If the pregnancy is being terminated because it is not wanted by the woman, the healthcare provider may suggest not doing it if the abortion has serious risks.

If the healthcare provider agrees to end the pregnancy, the first thing he/she does is give you certain abortion medications. With this, the healthcare provider makes the cervix soft and initiates the dilation process. After a pelvic exam, the surgeon widens the vaginal opening using a speculum.

This is followed by carefully removing the contents of pregnancy from the body. Surgical instruments are used to get the pregnancy tissues to eject from the body. To minimize the complications involved, doctors perform the abortion with the help of ultrasound guidance.

There are specific side effects of such surgical abortion: 

  • Nausea
  • Breast soreness
  • Heavy bleeding
  • Fever
  • Cramps

The success of late-term abortion is not always attainable. Additionally, the woman may have to face long-term consequences. The procedure also has risks of infection to the vagina.

Hence, most healthcare providers suggest taking the abortion decision in the first trimester only. When you abort the pregnancy in the first trimester, the risks and complications are low or almost no. If you are using effective abortion pills or consulting an experienced surgeon, the pregnancy termination procedure can be successful with minimum expense.

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