IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aph/ajpbhl/1975657731-734_5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Menstrual regulation in family planning services

Author

Listed:
  • Kessel, E.
  • Brenner, W.E.
  • Stathes, G.H.

Abstract

Fertility control by means of menstrual regulation is discussed in the context of family planning programs. Its efficacy, efficiency, safety, cost effectiveness, and acceptability are evaluated. Menstrual regulation is the term applied to any treatment which is administered within 14 days of a missed menstrual period to ensure that a woman either is not pregnant or does not remain pregnant. Because pregnancy tests are not accurate at this stage of pregnancy, it cannot be reliably determined whether a woman is pregnant prior to the procedure. The most common method of treatment is vacuum aspiration using a small diameter, clear plastic, flexible cannula. Neither dilation of the cervix nor anesthesia is usually required. Curetting the uterus for delayed periods has been performed for at least a century under the guise of 'dry cupping' or diagnostic endometrial biopsy to investigate amenorrhea. Many physicians have also had the experience of missing the ovum and having a pregnancy continue. Unfortunately, because these procedures were performed under guises, their effectiveness and complication rates for use in women with amenorrhea are unknown. The first systematic studies of the practicability of menstrual regulation were initiated by the International Fertility Research Program in 1972. Menstrual regulation appears to be a safe, effective, and economical method of fertility control. Its increased safety compared to first trimester abortion establishes menstrual regulation by vacuum aspiraion for treatment of up to 14 days missed menstrual period as probably better medical practice than waiting to confirm the presence of a pregnancy. Because it is a postconceptive method, menstrual regulation has potential in family planning services both as a recruitment service and for the treatment of contraceptive failures. Its use as an only method of fertility control is being studied. The acceptance of this new family planning service will primarily depend on its availability, dissemination of information about the service, and the ability of women freely to avail themselves of the service without delay. Although long term effects of single and repeated use of menstrual regulation are not known, its immediate complications are few and it can be recommended as a useful addition to present fertility control methods in family planning programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Kessel, E. & Brenner, W.E. & Stathes, G.H., 1975. "Menstrual regulation in family planning services," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 65(7), pages 731-734.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:1975:65:7:731-734_5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Berim, G.O. & Kessel, A.R., 1980. "Kinetics of the Ising magnet," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 112-126.
    2. Berim, G.O. & Kessel, A.R., 1982. "The linear Ising magnet in a strong time-dependent field," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 526-542.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:1975:65:7:731-734_5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.apha.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.