– The publication indicates that abortion-related services include the provision of information and counseling, pain management, and post-procedure care, including contraception.
– The document also provides guidance on how healthcare workers can support self-care approaches and telemedicine.
Mexico City, June 14, 2023. The World Health Organization (WHO) released a new manual for health care workers on Monday to help them provide quality abortion care for women, girls and anyone with the capacity to bear children. The publication provides detailed clinical advice to support the implementation of WHO’s consolidated guidance on abortion care published in 2022.
At Ipas Latin America and the Caribbean (Ipas LAC), we believe that the new manual fills some of the gaps that were in the previous manual and focuses squarely on the quality of services. In addition, it defines more clearly what abortion is, addresses some issues such as proper registration so as not to affect statistics, among other aspects that help medical practice.
Moreover, according to the new WHO manual, clinical services related to abortion also include not only the procedure itself, but also the provision of information and counseling, pain management and post-abortion care, including contraception.
The document also provides expanded guidance on how health workers can support self-care approaches and telemedicine, where available.
Self-care or self-management is an option for medical abortion, which WHO recommends as a safe and effective method. It is important to note that the medications used, mifepristone and misoprostol, are included in the WHO Essential Medicines List. With appropriate support, women can self-manage some or all stages of a medical abortion, for example, in their own home.
“When a woman chooses to self-manage abortion, health workers must be able to provide her with appropriate and accurate information and counseling so that she knows what to do, when to do it and, if necessary, how to access follow-up support,“ said physician Bela Ganatra, chief of WHO’s Comprehensive Abortion Care Unit, in a press release about the new manual.
“Medical abortion has played a critical role in expanding access to safe abortion around the world, especially for women and girls in the most vulnerable situations who may lack access to health facilities or need to keep their abortion private to avoid hospitalizations, so it is important that health care professionals can facilitate it as an option for abortion care,” she added.
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