Expert: Pat G - 5/11/2011

Question
I am a 17 year old who has a surgical abortion almost two months ago now. I was 9 weeks pregnant when they found an unusual lump in the placenta. I was strongly advised by my doctors to terminate the pregnancy. This took place when I was 11 weeks pregnant. My bleeding after that lasted for 3 weeks. Three weeks ago I got my period, It was nothing to be concerned about, however for the past week I have been bleeding. Not much, but enough to start to cause me some real concern. It seems to be old blood from the dark brown colour, but i am still worried.

Answer
Hello, Shawna,

I am so sorry they did that to you. Why is an unusual lump in the placenta a reason for an abortion? At the very least, they should have bothered to find out what the lump was all about.

Any time a woman has an abortion, there is cause for concern about what might happen afterwards. By doing an abortion on you for such a trivial reason, they have put your future children at risk for serious birth defects.

Dark brown blood is old blood. You are right about that. I'm wondering if they did an injury to you that they didn't expect to do. It is possible they either injured your cervix (very likely, since they have to force it open, and this is what causes the risk to future children) or they may have perforated the uterus. Also, when they do a surgical abortion, they scrape the surface of the uterus, which causes scar tissue to form. All of this is a possible source of bleeding. If they did a surgical abortion on you (which they would have to do at 11 weeks), you also should not have bled for three weeks, in my opinion. There was no reason, if they got all of the lining, and a lot of women don't bleed much.

I recommend you have a doctor check you out. Stay away from the persons who advised you to have an abortion. Their medical judgment is seriously warped, and they are unlikely to admit they harmed you in any way. If you need help finding a good doctor, you can find an organization in your area that will have doctors to recommend, and which can also help you with any concerns you have otherwise. You can find such an organization near you by going to this web site:

http://www.optionline.org/

Please take care, and let me know what you find out, and keep in touch.