Abortion: New medical guidelines for abortions

health abortion

What German gynecologists recommend for an abortion

Status: 11:29 am | Reading time: 2 minutes

Around 100,000 abortions are performed in Germany every year

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It is a novelty in Germany: For the first time, medical guidelines for abortions in the first trimester are published. The document is not only aimed at experts, but also at affected women – and gives recommendations for the choice of method, among other things.

MMedical knowledge on abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy has been summarized in a guideline for the first time in Germany. The aim is better and more uniform advice, implementation and aftercare, the document says. It was to be presented in Berlin on Thursday and was available to the German Press Agency in advance. The guideline was created under the leadership of the German Society for Gynecology and Obstetrics (DGGG) after agreement with the Federal Ministry of Health.

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According to data from the Federal Statistical Office, around 100,000 abortions are currently carried out in Germany every year, “with a slight downward trend overall”. In 2020, suction was carried out in a good half of the cases.

A medical abortion took place in almost a third of the women, a scraping in around one in ten. “Which method is most suitable in an individual case should be decided in an open-ended discussion with the pregnant woman,” the guideline recommends.

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“In some other countries, medical abortion is more common, and Germany is lagging behind,” said the coordinator of the guideline, Matthias David (Charité Berlin). For some women, however, there are reasons to make a conscious decision to have an operation.

“In the case of an operation, we recommend the safer instrument of suction instead of scraping,” said David. From a medical point of view, the earlier in the pregnancy an abortion is carried out, the better.

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Even if abortion is a routine procedure from a medical point of view, the recommendations have so far only been partially scientifically proven, said David. There are also ethical reasons for the lack of studies. Against this background, the guideline is consensus-based: Three quarters of the experts involved had to agree for recommendations.

Updates and an easier to understand version for patients are planned. According to the information, there are internationally evidence-based guidelines for other health systems and other legal starting conditions. In 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a manual for clinical practice on safe abortion in German.