QuestionHello,
I hope you don't mind me e-mailing you personally, but for the last few days I have been researching non-stop on the internet, Iam getting nowhere, and have had no luck from my own GP. I had a vacum aspiration abortion 3 weeks ago , I was 6 weeks gone, and the clinic said the procedure went well. I have taken all the anitbiotics which was given to me, and i am back on track emotionally and hopefully physically. The abortion was the result of a serious fall and the scan didn't look to good, and they advised for an abortion. My fiance and I, wanted to keep the baby but realised it was too late when we were advised , and was wondering when is it safe to start trying again, and are there any risks on being pregnant so soon after an abortion, and will the pregnancy itself be healthy and the baby?
I have read many stories online of women who have had miscarriages, and had D+C and concieved before their period or within couple of months and had successful pregnancies , as they were not far gone.Also, the Aberdeen University have found no links between a woman who has had a miscarriage and then fallen pregnant soon after in having another miscarriage- is this true?
I hope you can help , don't know where else I will get the desperately needed advice.
I'm sorry for troubling you, but feel like im going round in circles on the internet, and can't wait to concieve but worried about the risks.
Kind Regards
AnswerHello, Amelia-Grace,
I don't find it surprising that you didn't find an answer from your searching. This isn't a question of a simple yes-or-no answer. A lot depends on the details of what happened to you.
The most important question here is whether or not the baby had survived the fall, and the pregnancy was unlikely to end by itself. When a woman has an abortion, normally, they force open the cervix. This causes damage to the cervix, which can result in birth defects in future children. In the miscarriage situation, the cervix is already open, so no damage is done to it. But in fact, a D&C after miscarriage is also not necessarily a good idea for other reasons.
Because you have taken antibiotics, you will need to restore your intestinal flora. Get some pro-biotics. You can do this with fresh, live-culture yogurt, or certain other fermented foods such as Kombucha. Antibiotics won't prevent viral or fungal infection. You will need to be vigilant for this possibility, because it can affect a number of things, including future fertility.
An ethical doctor would have taken a wait-and-see attitude. If the fall had done serious damage, you would have had a miscarriage eventually. Having a D&C after a miscarriage is not the same thing as having an abortion of an intact pregnancy. One thing doctors worry about is getting blamed if a baby is born less than perfect, so doctors tend to be too quick to advise that a woman get an abortion if there is any question whether the baby has been harmed. The doctor obviously presented to you the idea that it was too late to help the baby. This is one problem with going to a doctor who thinks abortion is acceptable. It's actually unethical.
It's always a good idea to let your body heal for several months before trying again. However, if you become pregnant in the meantime, don't do anything; leave it alone. The more abortions you have, the more damage they do to your body. Abortion also has long term consequences for the woman, and sometimes these can kill a woman years later. I know of things to do that will decrease the likelihood of some problems, but not others.
Once you do become pregnant, find a doctor who is ethical. They have better medical judgment. Tell him about your abortion. He may need to do a procedure called cerclage, to safeguard your new baby from birth defects. These birth defects are primarily caused by extreme prematurity. The damaged cervix cannot hold the weight of a full term baby, so the doctor will fasten it shut until time for birth.
Good luck! Please keep in touch and let me know how things go. Always make sure to go to an ethical doctor. Don't take any more chances with people who have poor medical judgment.
