Determine Your Risk Factors Before an Abortion
Finding out that you’re pregnant isn’t always a happy occasion. Sometimes it’s unplanned and you feel like your whole world is falling apart. When that’s the case, it’s hard to see the future the way you’ve always imagined it would be.
As you struggle not to panic, you might be on your phone, looking at what options you have. If you’ve decided that an abortion is the right path for you, now is a good time to take a closer look at some important risk factors. The viability of your pregnancy and what can happen if you have an untreated sexually transmitted disease (STD) need to be addressed.
Viability of a Pregnancy
In order to determine if a pregnancy is viable, an ultrasound is used, generating images through the use of sound waves. However, before getting to that step, you’ll need to come in for a no cost, lab-quality pregnancy test to confirm your at-home test results. Sometimes home tests are wrong, and that can happen for many reasons.
Once your pregnancy has been confirmed, a no cost ultrasound will be offered to you. During your ultrasound, we’ll check for viability of the pregnancy. This means we’ll make sure it’s not an ectopic pregnancy (a condition that can be life-threatening). We’ll also be able to tell you the gestational age (number of weeks pregnant).
The reason this can be a risk factor before abortion is because not all abortion clinics evaluate for viability. They may just confirm that you’re currently pregnant and how many weeks into the pregnancy you are before the procedure.
Imagine, as an example, that a woman found out she was pregnant through a home test and scheduled an abortion immediately. Her friend, however, suggested she get an ultrasound that checks for viability, so she postponed the abortion. Then, when the ultrasound was performed, she found out that the pregnancy wasn’t viable and she would miscarry, which she did. She didn’t need to pay for an abortion after all. This is why checking the viability of your pregnancy is important.
Come to Thrive St. Louis first, to find out if your pregnancy is viable. This may save you the cost of an abortion, plus the physical and emotional after-affects.
STDs and Abortion
Even if you’re pretty sure that you don’t have an STD, you could be wrong. Often, there are no symptoms and yet an infection is inside the body. While it’s important to rid yourself of STD infections, it’s critical that it be done before having an abortion.
The reason for this is pelvic inflammatory disease or PID. This occurs when a woman with an STD infection has an abortion procedure. The actions from the abortion can move the infection further into the reproductive tract, including the cervix and uterus, resulting in PID.
PID can cause infertility, ectopic pregnancy, abscess formation, and chronic pelvic pain.
Come in for Testing
Come into Thrive St. Louis for a free lab grade pregnancy test to confirm your at-home results, an ultrasound to confirm viability of the pregnancy, and testing for STDs.
Make an appointment today. We are committed to empowering you with real facts and information, so you can confidently make the best choice for you.
