Provide good care after abortion to protect women's reproductive health

Post-Abortion Care, or PAC for short, is a standardized medical service process that, through one-on-one consultation and group education, promotes contraceptive knowledge to women who come to undergo abortion surgery, that is, implements effective contraceptive methods, avoids repeated artificial abortions, and protects women's reproductive health.

There are 8-10 million artificial abortions in my country every year. In big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, the rate of repeated abortion is as high as 50%. Artificial abortion has become a social problem that affects the reproductive health and quality of life of the majority of women in my country. Repeated abortions will have a significant impact on women's long-term fertility and future pregnancy outcomes. The more artificial abortions, the higher the incidence of abortion complications and sequelae. Repeated artificial abortions within 1 year, especially within 6 months, are the most harmful and are called "high-risk abortions." Short-term complications that may be caused by artificial abortions include uterine perforation, bleeding, infection, intrauterine adhesions, endometriosis, chronic pelvic inflammatory disease, irregular menstruation, amenorrhea, etc.; in the long term, they may lead to secondary infertility, placental abnormalities, habitual abortions, premature births, fetal death, etc.

The main reasons for the high rate of repeated abortions are the young people of childbearing age's weak awareness of contraception, lack of contraceptive knowledge or misunderstandings about contraceptive methods. The channels for obtaining relevant knowledge are also misplaced, and most of them are non-professional channels. At the same time, my country's medical institutions have not yet fully implemented standardized post-abortion contraceptive consultation services, resulting in a high risk of women having another unwanted pregnancy after having an artificial abortion.

Therefore, in April 2011, the Family Planning Branch of the Chinese Medical Association issued my country's first "Guidelines for Post-abortion Family Planning Services", which provided standardized standards and reference basis for the widespread implementation of post-abortion care in my country.

The main contents of post-abortion services include: medical services for post-abortion complications, post-abortion family planning services, post-abortion counseling services and post-abortion comprehensive reproductive health services. It is a standardized medical service process.

Through PAC activities, women who have induced abortions meet four specific requirements: awareness of preventing unwanted pregnancies; informed choice of a contraceptive method that suits them; access to the chosen contraceptives or those suitable for their use during the transition period to ensure that contraceptive measures can be implemented immediately; and confidence and determination to understand and persist in using the chosen contraceptive method.