NEWSWEEK – Many women who end their pregnancies early with an abortion pill are told that the pain will be similar to period cramps and are then surprised by how painful it is, a British survey found.
Medical abortion, commonly called “the abortion pill,” is an effective method of terminating a pregnancy which can take place at home.
In the early stages of pregnancy, at or before 10 weeks, a pregnant person can take a pill called misoprostol, with or without mifepristone, to simulate an early miscarriage.
The Planned Parenthood website describes the process as “kind of like having a really heavy, crampy period.”
But a survey of nearly 1,600 women in England and Wales who recently had a medical abortion found that comparing the pain to period cramps had left them unprepared.
“Pain was so much stronger than period pain, it was like having contractions in labor,” one of the survey respondents wrote. “I’ve given birth three times and the pain really wasn’t too much different from that pain, the cramping contraction pain.”
About half—48.5 percent—of respondents said that the pain they experienced was worse than they expected.
Period pain, abortion pills
Scoring the pain out of a maximum of 10, the vast majority—92 percent—gave their pain at least a 4 out of 10, while 41.5 percent scored it 8 or above, classed as severe.
“Benchmarking against period pain has long been used as a way to describe the pain associated with medical abortion, despite the wide variability of period pain experienced,” said lead author Hannah McCulloch, a researcher at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, in a statement.
“The results of the survey show that counselling on this aspect of medical abortion needs to improve.”
“For many respondents, using period pain as a reference point for what to expect was not helpful for managing expectations or in line with their experiences” …
