Calling surgical management of a MMC a 'termination'?

[Cinai2]

So this happened some time ago now and I've been blessed with a healthy DS in the meantime but it's still on my mind.....right before getting pregnant with him, I had a MMC that needed surgical management. I had complications and needed to attend A&E the night after my surgical management. The doctor there kept referring to it as 'termination', e.g. 'When did you have your termination?'. I explained that I didn't terminate but had a MMC that needed management, but she continued to call it 'termination'. I found this incredibly upsetting because it was a much wanted pregnancy and I didn't 'have a termination', my body sadly decided to terminate it. It might be silly, but I'm still feeling so uneasy about this meeting with the doctor. My question is, is it medically correct to call a medical management of a MMC a 'termination' and my emotional state just made me oversensitive, or was the doctor out of line?

She sounds very insensitive.

My understanding is that the same procedures are used, whether it’s a surgical abortion or surgical management of a miscarriage (similarly a medical abortion and medical management of a miscarriage use the same drugs). But that doesn’t meant the language she uses should be the same.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. I dont know the answer to your question, but having had medical management of a MMC I would feel exactly the same. It is incredibly insensitive.

It’s technically the correct term, but doctors really need to adopt more sensitive language in situations like this

I know what you mean, my MMC is on my records as a “spontaneous abortion” which is medically correct, but still sounds wrong.

It’s not a termination!

Medically it can be referred to as a spontaneous abortion, but you’d have to have no bedside manner at all to use these description to a patient, but a termination is a deliberate act to terminate a viable pregnancy.

I work in this sector and this would be taken very seriously if you were to raise this. Doctors working in this area need to be more sensitive. For example women who have terminations for medical reasons, we now use compassionate induction as the word termination is distressing for women having to make this difficult choice in a much wanted pregnancy due to medical problems.

I’m so sorry you had this experience

The doctor was insensitive, at best. Also, probably a spreadsheet brain kind of person. I'm sorry you had to go through this and with that individual.

A completely different scenario but still angered me.
After having my daughter i had complications. It was found weeks later that I had pieces of placenta retained which were actively bleeding and causing me to be severely anaemic.
The sonographer was brilliant but had to refer me back via my GP to gynae for revision surgery as I was no longer technically under maternity care.
This was about 8 weeks after giving birth.

Gynae called me, wouldnt offer me an appointment and the woman on the phone kept referring to the retained products as 'your miscarriage'.
I lost count of the number of times I had to say that I hadnt had a miscarriage.
I had a happy, 8 week old baby cooing at me but they still told me that my body would sort the miscarriage on its own.
I found it very insensitive at the time.

Some medical professionals really need to look at their terminology, especially in sensitive cases.
Sorry yhis happened to you OP.

It was referred to as 'evacuation of products of conception' to me at one point. Thankfully noone called it a termination to me.