The Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics include abortion education as a core objective for medical students. Medical schools often use brief clinical exposure to abortion to meet this objective. For many students, this encounter serves as their only opportunity to observe this common but potentially controversial procedure. No study has asked students to ...Read more >

Objectives: The idea of third-trimester abortion has been used politically, both to cultivate support for and opposition to abortion rights but the experiences of people who obtain such abortions is missing from public discourse. This study aimed to: 1) increase knowledge of women’s experience of seeking and obtaining third-trimester abortion and 2) document relevant clinical ...Read more >

In recognition of the barriers to optimal reproductive and sexual health for women affected by HIV, The AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) recently launched the Midwest HIV Prevention and Pregnancy Planning Initiative which aims to reduce HIV infections and increase pregnancy planning among women in high HIV prevalence communities in the Midwest by increasing the ...Read more >

This Community-Based Participatory Research Grantsproject aims to expand access to reproductive health services, particularly for adolescents and young adults, in an underserved, primarily Native Hawaiian, rural community in Hawai‘i. Partners include the University of Hawai‘i Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Women’s Health, the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, and Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest ...Read more >

Objectives: Misoprostol-alone is an increasingly common method of induced abortion in countries such as Pakistan where abortion is legally restricted, but measurement poses significant challenges. The list experiment is a secret-answer technique that has been shown to more accurately measure sensitive behaviors like abortion compared to traditional face-to-face interviews. This study developed measures of misoprostol ...Read more >

Objective: To compare the effectiveness of two oral analgesic regimens in first trimester medical abortion. Methods: We randomly assigned 250 women undergoing first trimester abortion with mifepristone and misoprostol at three clinics to two ibuprofen regimens: therapeutic (800 mg every 4-6 hours as needed for pain), or prophylactic (800 mg starting 1 hour before the ...Read more >

Background: With the historic legalization of abortion in Nepal in 2002, descriptive data on the prevalence of legal abortion services are now available, but little is known about access to contraception and method use, or reproductive behaviors and intentions following abortion. Our mixed-method study examined women’s contraceptive use and continuation after obtaining a legal abortion, ...Read more >

Purpose: This study examined whether 15-19 year old IUD users were more likely to experience complications, failure, or early discontinuation than older users and whether there were differences between users of levonorgestrel-containing IUDs (LNG-IUS) and copper-containing IUDs (CuT380A). Scope: Many US providers remain reluctant to prescribe intrauterine devices (IUDs) to teenagers due to concerns about ...Read more >

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether oral contraceptives (OCPs), Levonorgestrel (LNG) intrauterine devices (IUDs), and Copper IUDs block the up-regulated expression of the L-selectin ligand to determine if this mechanism of action makes feasible a non-hormonal, highly effective “on demand” contraceptive. Methods: We studied L-selectin expression in the endometrium of women ...Read more >

Background: The 2010 elections in Myanmar installed the country’s first civilian-elected government in more than 50 years, and subsequent growth and change have been rapid. However, reproductive health indicators are generally poor and reflect significant regional and geographic disparities. Rural populations are increasingly migrating to urban centers, like Yangon, in search of better economic opportunities ...Read more >