The level of unpleasantness of pain influences the choice of home treatment during medical abortion.

Background and aims Medical abortion is often performed at outpatient clinics or gynaecological wards. Yet, some women may stay at home during medical abortion. Pain has been reported to be one of the main side effects of the procedure.

Pain during medical abortion: predicting factors from gynecologic history and medical staff evaluation of severity.

Background: We studied whether it is possible to predict severity of pain during medical abortion. We also studied how well medical staff recognizes the pain perceived by these women.

Study Design: Fifty-four women (mean age 26 years, range 18-42 years) undergoing medical abortion before the 64th day of gestation (mean 47 days, range 32-63 days) were asked to estimate their menstrual pain and the pain perceived during medical abortion by visual analogue scale (VAS).

The learning curve is rapid in medical termination of pregnancy--first-year results from the Helsinki area.

Medical termination of pregnancy by means of mifepristone and prostaglandin became available in Finland in May 2000. We summarize the first year results of medical abortion in a large tertiary care unit in Helsinki. A regimen of 200 mg of mifepristone followed by 0.