First Trimester Procedural Abortion in Family Medicine

Abstract

Unintended pregnancy is common, and in the United States almost half of all women will have at least one abortion during their lifetime. The majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester. Although advances have been made in the provision of medical abortion in the family medicine setting, procedural methods remain the cornerstone of abortion care. We present a step-wise review of first trimester procedural abortion using the manual vacuum aspirator to demonstrate the feasibility of incorporating this service into a primary care setting.