she terminated her pregnancy – but it’s not gone smoothly

Q My daughter had a surgical abortion about eight weeks ago and today told me she hasn’t stopped bleeding since then, what could be going on?

Philippa says

A Encourage your daughter to return to the clinic where she had the termination of pregnancy or to her GP. Possible reasons for her bleeding include infection of the womb or that the termination was not complete and that there are still some products of conception left in the uterus causing the bleeding. Both of these complications, occur in approximately 1 in 20 terminations. For an infection she will be given antiobiotics and if there are retained products she may be offered another procedure to remove them.