Volume 31, Number 1, January/February 1999 termination using methotrexate started to appear in both the medical and popular literature.3 Interest in this method grew rapidly within the community of abortion providers. In spring 1996, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) devoted its annual postgraduate symposium to medical abortion, including both mifepristone and methotrexate, and the Planned...

A hopeful note in the contemporary abortion environment in the United States is the expanding role of advanced practice clinicians--nurse practitioners, physician assistants and nurse-midwives--in first trimester abortion provision. A large percentage of primary health care in the U.S. is currently provided by these non-physicians but their involvement in abortion care is promising, especially ...

BACKGROUND The dose of mifepristone approved by most government agencies for medical abortion is 600 mg. Our aim was to summarize extant data on the effectiveness and safety of regimens using the widely recommended lower mifepristone dose, 200 mg, followed by misoprostol in early pregnancy and to explore potential correlates of abortion failure. STUDY DESIGN To identify eligible reports, we s...

BACKGROUND Improving access to safe abortion is an essential strategy in the provision of universal access to reproductive health care. Australians are largely supportive of the provision of abortion and its decriminalization. However, the lack of data and the complex legal and service delivery situation impacts upon access for women seeking an early termination of pregnancy. There are no syste...

Family Planning Perspectives In 1996, as well, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took significant steps toward approving the use of medical (nonsurgical) abortion in the United States, essentially by “preapproving” the use of mifepristone, popularly known as RU 486, as an abortifacient; final approval is pending information on manufacturing and labeling. In addition, FDA cleared the way fo...

Regulation of fertility can be difficult, and women need highly dependable contraception to achieve their desired fertility. Only 20% of early abortions in England and Wales and 60% in Scotland are undertaken by the medical method. Medical methods for early abortion appear to be promising alternatives to surgical abortion, and widespread dissemination of this method is needed. Instituting fast ...

To provide optimal information to women choosing between early medical and surgical abortion, rigorous comparisons of the two methods are warranted. We compared the outcome of 1135 consecutive women with gestational age (GA) < or = 63 days receiving either a medical (600 mg mifepristone and 1 mg gemeprost) or a surgical abortion (vacuum aspiration in general anesthesia). One hundred eleven of t...

Although incomplete spontaneous abortions are common in early pregnancy, fetal decapitation does not specifically appear in the medical literature as a known complication of spontaneous abortion. We present a rare and unusual case of an incomplete spontaneous abortion occurring at home with the mother presenting to the emergency department (ED) with a decapitated fetus and a retained fetal head...