How do you know if you have abortion complications?

What are the possible abortion pill complications and what should you do?

These are the possible complications, their symptoms and treatment:

Heavy bleeding (occurs in less than 1% of medical abortions)

• Symptom: Bleeding that lasts for more than 2 hours and soaks more than 2 maxi sanitary pads per hour. Feeling dizzy or light-headed can be a sign of too much blood loss. This is dangerous to your health and must be treated by a doctor.
• Treatment: a vacuum aspiration (curettage.) When available, a woman should start taking 2 Misoprostol under the tongue immediately at home before going to the hospital.  Very rarely (less than 0.2%) a blood transfusion is needed.

Incomplete abortion

• Symptoms: heavy or persistent bleeding and/or persistent severe pain.
• Treatment: 2 tablets of Misoprostol or/ and a vacuum aspiration (curettage)

Infection

• Symptom: If you have a fever (more than 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) for more than 24 hours, or you have a fever of more than 102.2 degrees Fahrenheit, there might be an infection that needs treatment.
• Treatment: antibiotics and/or vacuum aspiration.

If you think you might have a complication you should go to a doctor immediately. You do not have to tell the medical staff that you tried to induce an abortion; you can tell them that you had a spontaneous miscarriage. Doctors have the obligation to help in all cases and know how to handle a miscarriage.

Miscarriage vs abortion symptoms

The symptoms of a miscarriage and an abortion with pills are exactly the same and the doctor will not be able to see or test for any evidence of an abortion, as long as the pills have completely dissolved. If you used the Misoprostol under the tongue as our protocol recommends, the pills should have dissolved within 30 minutes. If you took the pills vaginally, you must check with your finger to make sure that they are dissolved. Traces of the pills may be found in the vagina up to four days after inserting them.

Ongoing pregnancy

Less than 1% of women experience ongoing pregnancy.[1] This can be determined by a pregnancy test after 3 weeks or an ultrasound within 10 days. If the medical abortion treatment failed, there is a slight increase in the risk of birth defects such as deformities of the hands or feet and problems with the nerves of the fetus. To treat an ongoing pregnancy, you must repeat a medical or surgical abortion.

^{[1] “Low-dose Mifepristone Regimens are Effective and Safe for Early Abortion.” The Guttmacher Institute. https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/ipsrh/2013/07/low-dose-mifepristone-regimens-are-effective-and-safe-early-abortion}