How Abortion Is Performed

We know that the subject of abortion can be distressing and worrying for women.

We want to walk you through everything you may want to know about the decision to have an abortion for an unwanted pregnancy, and the process that follows.

First and foremost, you should make your decision with no lingering doubts. If needed, talk it through with your partner and consider their thoughts as well.

For a woman who wishes to have an elective curettage, the first step — as soon as pregnancy is suspected or a period is late — is to see an obstetrician-gynecologist to confirm the pregnancy and, if confirmed, determine the exact gestational week via ultrasonography.

Curettage procedures are generally performed under sedation anesthesia when the patient's condition allows, and sometimes under local anesthesia. (For patient comfort, we do not favor local anesthesia.)

Why we do not favor performing curettage under local anesthesia:

Even when local anesthetic medications are used, the patient may experience mild to significant pain in the abdomen and groin, depending on individual pain threshold (pain threshold refers to how the same degree of discomfort can be perceived at different intensities by different patients).

If your blood type Rh factor is NEGATIVE and your partner's Rh factor is POSITIVE — or unknown — receiving the Anti-D injection prescribed by your physician within the first 72 hours after the procedure will prevent blood group incompatibility in future pregnancies you wish to carry to term.

There are generally two methods used to terminate a pregnancy. The most common is vacuum aspiration, in which the pregnancy is gently suctioned out. The less common method is curettage using surgical curette instruments to scrape the uterine wall.

We use an automatic vacuum device, which reduces procedure time by about 70% compared to manual vacuum devices.

Preparing for the Procedure

Once you have decided to terminate your pregnancy, what happens next?

What do you need to do, and what should you expect?

First, you call our clinic and schedule your appointment.

After booking, our secretaries or nurses will call you and let you know that you should have nothing solid to eat for the last 6 hours, and no liquids for the last 4 hours, before the day of your procedure. General anesthesia/sedation is never administered to a patient who has eaten or had liquids within the last 6 hours — in such a case, the procedure is cancelled.

Arriving 15 minutes before your appointment time is sufficient. Our secretaries will greet you and request the necessary information. Until you wake up after the procedure, a dedicated nurse will stay with you and will take you to meet your obstetrician-gynecologist surgeon for a one-on-one conversation.

Your doctor will explain the necessary details of the procedure and answer your questions, then take you for an ultrasound examination to calculate the gestational week.

If the pregnancy is within the legal window for termination (under Turkish law, up to the 10th week of gestation), your nurse will begin preparing you for the procedure.

The preparation stage ends with an IV line placed in your arm (venous access via IV cannula). This cannula is used both to draw the blood sample needed for required tests and to administer medication.

While your nurse prepares you in the operating room, the anesthesiologist who will put you to sleep will speak with you.

The procedure begins with a medication given through your open IV line; you will fall into a deep sleep within about 10 seconds.

After the 5–10 minute procedure, you are moved to a recovery (observation) room, where you wake up within about 10 minutes. Typically, the last thing you remember is the number you reached while counting down from 10 as the anesthesiologist asked (usually 4 or 5).

And that's it — your procedure is complete. Final checks are done within 20 minutes, and once your physician is satisfied, you may go home.

An experienced physician performs an ultrasound examination during and after the procedure to confirm the pregnancy has been fully removed. For this reason, additional short-term follow-up appointments are generally not needed — though of course, patients are always welcome to return for a check-up whenever they wish.