I'm a midwife who works in abortion care. AMA

[GlitteryPoopooplop]

Go ahead. I'll try and answer everything the best way I can. Sorry if this is boring (I love my job and can go on about it a bit.)!

🙄 there's one.

Women are more than just our bodies.
Women are not just incubators.

Babies are more than just leaches.
Babies also have a choice, to live.

It is the womans choice as it is her body.
You clearly dont agree and thats fine.

Hello glittery, I had a termination at 10 weeks. Could the surgeon see the sex at that point? Also are babies cremated? I read somewhere they are treated with respect and not just thrown away. Mine was 8 years ago but breaks my heart every day 😔

Thank you for what you do op.
I have had two abortions. I had these abortions to save another child having my ex as a father.
Any hormonal contraceptive wreak havoc on my periods. Mostly completely stop them. Even after it runs out or is removed. So it was very obvious if I was trying to prevent a pregnancy.
Ex wanted another child badly. I got out eventually but I do not and will not regret having a termination.
I am thankful for the kindness people at the clinic showed me.

I had a termination at a Marie Stopes clinic 11 years ago. The nurses and MW were lovely - the actual counsellors were not. I felt they just wanted my £ and at no time was I actually counselled as to whether I really wanted it.
It turns out I was coerced into it by my now ex but I was in so deep I didn't recognise that - he made me believe it was the right thing. It wasn't.

@HumberElla yes we mostly work in small teams. I absolutely love my colleagues. Obviously some more than others. Mostly, it's an absolute pleasure to work there.

@snarfblatt it's hard to know really without seeing the scan. Sometimes peoples dates are slightly different to what shows on the scan. Normally if someone is due they should be 7 or 8 weeks and there isn't an obvious fetal pole I'd let them know. It might have just been that you ovulated a bit later than you thought. About 5% of women will miscarry just from the first pill, so it might not have been a miscarriage in waiting. But its always a possibility.

@Hopingforpixiedust definitely could not have seen the sex. Even at about 15 weeks it can be really difficult to see (from my experience looking after women who had lost those babies and wanted to know). And yes they're cremated. I'm so sorry you want through that. Xxxx

@Oswin I'm sorry you went through that but I'm really glad you shared your experiences. There are so many complicated things to consider in cases like yours, it's not always straightforward.

Thanks @GlitteryPoopooplop. At the time I had no idea when I'd ovulated, I was on the pill. I worked out how far along I was by using the EDD they gave me and working backwards. She just said it was a 'tiddler' so yes, maybe she just meant it was measuring small for that gestation. Thanks for replying!

@TheOrigRightsofwomen urgh that's so rubbish. I'm sorry that happened to you. X

GlitteryPoopooplop, my DF is a long retired doctor. He's told me about working on a Gynae ward before the 1967 Abortion Act. Thought you might be interested.

Apparently every few weeks there'd be a little flurry of women admitted who staff were sure had had backstreet abortions that hadn't gone smoothly. They assumed there were a lot of other women who hadn't had any ill effects so they didn't see them. From the rhythm to the admissions it seemed an abortionist would tip up locally every little while. Presumably they traveled around.

The police sometimes turned up hoping to charge someone, but they didn't get far. DF and the rest of the staff always pointed out that miscarriage wasn't illegal, that they couldn't prove any cause for the miscarriage, and they refused to breach medical confidentiality.

DF was and is passionately pro-choice.

Thank you for your AMA and for the vital work you do with such compassion.

@Prawnofthepatriarchy wow, that's a really interesting story. You should be so proud of him. It's people like him who mean that women are so much safer now, and mean that I have a job! I often wonder if I'd been a nurse back then how I'd behave.

I am immensely proud of him. Post 1967 he always referred for abortion on request. He said "I'm a doctor of medicine, not theology."

Glittery, the work you do is so valuable! Could you tell me what qualifications you’d require to work in it? Is it midwives and RGNs or can RMNs work there as well? I’m currently training as an RMN and think the work you do would be so rewarding to support women on what can be one of the most difficult and distressing days of their life.
The discussion for pro life or pro choice isn’t on this thread where women have shared personal stories of their own pregnancies, whether they have ended by choice or no and for whatever reason that may be.
I am staunchly pro choice and understand how emotive the subject may be but it isn’t fair to pass judgement on others. Whichever stance you may hold!
I have had to make the decision at 16 years old whether or not to have a termination and chose not to. I would NEVER judge another woman for making a different choice to myself! Women should support one another, not tear each other down! God knows it’s hard enough for women without us not supporting one another regardless of if we would make that same choice for ourself!

@Ownerofasmellydog I absolutely completely and utterly agree! I can totally understand why some think that my views are barbaric, and murderous. I literally do kill babies for my job. For that reason I would never ever try to change someone's mind. I'll put my point across and if it helps them see an alternative, fine. If not, that's up to them. But I stand by my views.

I'm a registered midwife (direct entry), other practitioners are registered nurses with a variety of backgrounds.

Does it or could it hurt the baby?

Does feticide always work first time?

Warmest, let me look into it. There's some big ones like MSI and bpas, obviously, but I'm sure there are some tiny ones which would really benefit!

Slithy sorry, I thought I'd answered the pain one a couple of times but maybe it got lost somewhere. The short answer is no, the nerve receptors aren't developed so early.

I've only ever seen feticide performed a couple of times and both have been successful. It's done under scan so we'd know if it hadn't worked.

Charities I like... The abortion support network which helps women who need to travel out of their own country for care... www.asn.org.uk

www.abortionrights.org.uk which does lots of campaigning.

I also really like one called bloody good period, not strictly related to abortion though!
Xx

Hi OP, thanks for the amazing thread.
I come from a country where assisting or going through an abortion can get you in jail, so I'm always amazed at first world countries and the choices women have there. There's nothing that makes you feel more than a second class citzen than being "punished" for getting accidentally pregnant by being forced to raise a child until they're grown (sure, there's adoption, but it seems SS here wants families to stay together more than anything, even when the families don't want to).

I do have a question, and if regards very late term abortions so feel free to answer by PM if you don't want this topic to appear again: do you think the problem of women wanting abortions post 24 weeks and not being able to get them could be solved, at least in part, by providing them with elective C-sections to get the baby out and to adoption?

Sorry if it sounds confusing, it's way too late/early for me to remember proper grammar in English.

OP my question is, if a women wasn't sure whether to choose medical or surgical option, which would you recommend? I've heard the medical option can be extremely painful and has a higher failure rate.

What are the main reasons women have in making their choice between the two?

@HoHoFuck no i don't think that would help. Good thinking though. The risks of an elective cs are very very very high compared to an abortion. Also, there are a lot of risks for babies who are born prematurely. People often think of viability starting at 24 weeks but a baby born at 24 weeks has a mega high risk of mortality/morbidity (i do see the irony here in that abortion has a 100% mortality rate for the baby).

@Butteredghost I'd normally sit and have a mega chat with them about it. They're are risks to both, obviously, and benefits to both. Here I'm talking about women under 10 weeks...

Benefits of the pills... You can normally have them on the day that you come in to be assessed, you get to be in the comfort of your own home. Down sides of it, it can go on for hours, you cannot be sure that it's worked, it often gives horrible dogs effects like vomiting and diarrhoea.

The good thing with surgery is, it's over very quickly (about 5 or 10 minutes), you leave the building knowing you're not pregnant, if you want a coil, you can have it fitted at the same time, you tend to have less bleeding afterwards. Bad things, someone is doing an actual procedure on you, so it's not for everyone, it's intense and painful (if you have it under local anesthetic). technically we could perforate your uterus (though that's very very unlikely).

I'd normally chat about their circumstances, so if they've got small children and nobody to take them, I'd suggest surgery. If they hate the sight of blood, surgery. If they're very very early, pills.if they're anxious about smear tests etc, pills.

I was terrified of the idea of the pills due to anxiety and having kids at home so despite initially consenting to them because I could do it sooner, I went for surgery. I am so glad I was, and in my case, with sedation, it wasn’t painful. The nurses who were with me couldn’t have been lovelier. I do have recurring dreams about the fact that it was a procedure the fact that they were all so nice makes it easier to deal with.

In my case I initially really thought I would carry on with the pregnancy despite accidental. But both my son and I got really ill while I was pregnant and I became hugely anxious and panicky. I realised I didn’t think I would cope well or that it was fair on the rest of my family. I also think I had ante-natal depression which made it everything seem so much worse in my head. One thing is I wish I could have accessed counselling more easily to be absolutely sure of my decision given my increased anxiety and being ill etc - every time I asked Bpas I was told “sure, you can book it after your next appointment” until they were telling me I could book it after the procedure. I don’t think it would have changed my decision but at the time I only had DH, who wasn’t keen at all and was also worrying about how we would cope, to talk it through with. I felt really desperate and my polite phone voice doesn’t always convey that well. I know that funding is a huge issue though. I have found a local charity so I can go and talk through my feelings about it and plan to donate to them when I do.

Thanks for all you do OP Oh and I am glad your baby is pro choice too.