Expert: Pat G - 12/9/2009

Question
I just recently had an abortion about 2 weeks ago. I had unprotected sex about 5 days later. I took a pregnancy test and the results came back positive. How is this possible? Am I supposed to be alright and I thought that the results would be negative. Please help and thank you very much.

Answer
Hello, Demetria,

If you have an abortion, you are not all right. Abortion causes all kinds of damage. That said, don't worry about being pregnant from sex just five days later. It is very unlikely (as in, it would be a miracle if you were). You probably have pregnancy hormones left over from before the abortion. This is common. Now here is the reasoning. Since it takes awhile for the hormones of pregnancy to dissipate after an abortion, you wouldn't be fertile yet. Even if you were fertile on the day you had the abortion, and you had sex that very day, most pregnancy tests wouldn't show positive for another few days. But you had sex 5 days later. It's simply too soon for a pregnancy test to show positive in that case, even if you were fertile on that day.

Please give some thought to the fact that you are still having sex. If you don't want another abortion, it is important to think through the risks you are taking. "Protection" and pulling out don't work. If you're not married, sex isn't in your best interests for a number of reasons. Another reason is that it is very easy to get a nasty disease from having sex with anyone who has ever slept with anyone else. Having sex so soon after abortion may also make you more vulnerable, because the uterus is usually still open to the outside world, and if you had a surgical abortion, then the surface of your uterus has been damaged, and it is raw and open, and such a disease can easily get into your blood stream. So I recommend at this point that you get tested for sexually transmitted diseases. There are also other diseases that are much more likely for the same reason. If you are married, I recommend you learn to tell when you are fertile. You have to chart faithfully, and you can't be using hormones. You can then have sex on your infertile days. For more information, go here:

http://www.fertilityuk.org/

Please take care of yourself. You deserve better. And you're welcome. Feel free to write back, and let me know how you do.