Finding out you are pregnant can be an overwhelming experience, especially if being pregnant is the last thing you want to be. You may feel like your life is spinning out of control when you see those two lines or a plus sign on the pregnancy test. You may ask yourself, “How can this happen?” “Didn’t I just have my period?”
If you are considering abortion as an option, you may think, “I need to take care of this immediately. I don’t want anyone to find out I’m pregnant”; however, there are important reasons; for your health and safety, you need to have your pregnancy confirmed by a medical professional and obtain an ultrasound before you make ANY decision.
Let’s start with a pregnancy test. Medical clinics, like Pathway Health Clinic, use medical-grade pregnancy tests. Those tests are checked daily to ensure they have not expired, and every new box undergoes a control test to ensure the tests are accurate. Although buying a pregnancy test over the counter is common, you don’t know how long that test has been sitting on the shelf and if it’s still accurate. At Pathway Health Clinic, only licensed medical professionals administer and read the pregnancy tests. Sometimes a pregnancy test can show a very faint positive, which may be hard to see. There can be many reasons for this, and a medical professional will cover this with you. Additionally, pregnancy tests left sitting too long while testing can provide unreliable results. Our medical professionals are trained to deal with all of these scenarios.
Let’s move on to the importance of ultrasound. There are three critical reasons that it is in YOUR best interest to have an ultrasound before making ANY decision.
- Only an ultrasound can give you accurate dating for your pregnancy. An ultrasound determines how far along your pregnancy is. If you are considering abortion as an option, you need to know this information. RU486, the abortion pill, is only approved for use up to 10 weeks (72 days) gestation. If you are past that date and still considering abortion, you will have to undergo a surgical abortion.
- Only an ultrasound will show if your pregnancy is located in the uterus. Sometimes a pregnancy can implant in the fallopian tube, which is called a tubal ectopic pregnancy. An ectopic pregnancy requires immediate medical attention due to the risk of the fallopian tube rupturing and causing internal bleeding[1].
- An ultrasound will show if there is viability (a heartbeat). Approximately 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage[2]. Many miscarriages occur before someone knows that they are pregnant. Depending on when the miscarriage happened, a pregnancy test will still show a positive. Ultrasound will reveal if there is a heartbeat. If you are considering abortion, and it appears you are going to miscarry, at that point, an abortion is not necessary. If we at Pathway, based on ultrasound findings, suspect a miscarriage; we will provide you with miscarriage precautions and advise you to seek medical attention.
We get it; an unexpected pregnancy can be overwhelming, scary, and emotional. However, the patient care team at Pathway Health Clinic believes that YOUR health and safety are essential and that YOU deserve the most accurate information you can receive.
We believe you are smart and can make your own decisions, we want to give you all the information you need in that decision making process.
Our pregnancy services are always at no cost because your present finances should never get in the way of obtaining medical care.
*Pathway Health Clinic neither refers nor provides abortion services
[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ectopic-pregnancy/symptoms-causes/syc-20372088
[2] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pregnancy-loss-miscarriage/symptoms-causes/syc-20354298#:~:text=About%2010%20to%2020%20percent,even%20know%20about%20a%20pregnancy.
