CONTEXT Women choose medical over surgical abortion because it is more natural, more private and less painful. Whether their perceptions change during the medical abortion process has not been explored. METHODS A nonprobabilitysample of 43 participants in a clinical trial of abortion using mifepristone completed two open-ended questionnaires about this method, one before taking mifepristone a...

Provision of safe abortion to the full extent of the law is an important component of reproductive health services. The development of methods of inducing abortion by medical means has created alternative options to make abortion available to women in health-care settings. Ideally, any method of medical abortion should have an overall efficacy comparable to that of surgical method, i.e. a rate ...

BACKGROUND The availability and effectiveness of decision aids (DAs) on early abortion methods remain unknown, despite their potential for supporting women's decision making. OBJECTIVE To describe the availability, impact and quality of DAs on surgical and medical early abortion methods for women seeking induced abortion. SEARCH STRATEGY For the systematic review, we searched MEDLINE, Cochr...

BACKGROUND Every year 42 million women with unintended pregnancies choose abortion, and fifty percent of these procedures, 20 million are unsafe. An unsafe abortion is defined as a procedure for terminating an unintended pregnancy carried out either by person lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimal medical standards or both.Pakistan is the one of the s...

BACKGROUND Abortion services were legalized in India in 1972, however, the access to safe abortion services is restricted, especially in rural areas. In 2002, medical abortion using mifepristone- misoprostol was approved for termination of pregnancy, however, its use has been limited in primary care settings. METHODS This paper describes a service delivery intervention for women attending wit...

Threatened miscarriage is a common complication of pregnancy. Despite initial viability confirmation by ultrasound scan, some of these patients had further spontaneous abortion. A highly sensitive and specific biomarker would be useful to determine the outcome of pregnancy and to prevent emotional impact to these women. A prospective 14-month cohort study was conducted in the Obstetrics and Gyn...

OBJECTIVE Training midlevel providers (MLPs) to conduct surgical abortions and manage medical abortions has been proposed as a way to increase women's access to safe abortion. This paper reviews the evidence that compares the effectiveness and safety of abortion procedures administered by MLPs versus doctors. METHODS A systematic search was conducted of published trials and comparison studies...