, a University of Toronto public health professor who has researched health policies around Mifegymiso, says she often encounters people who think the drug is new and dangerous, when in fact it's been safely used in some countries since the 1980s.is very clear about this."
The other conditions of its use haven't changed since Tuesday's declaration: it's still only prescribed to patients who are less than nine weeks pregnant.There were two significant purposes to the ultrasound, Norman explained: to make sure the pregnancy isn't ectopic, and to determine gestational age. Both can be determined in other ways.
But Mifegymiso won't terminate an ectopic pregnancy, Norman explains, because"the pill acts on the place where the pregnancy joins with the uterus." It won't cause any harm to the woman seeking to end her pregnancy, but it won't end her pregnancy, either.Health Canada has deemed ultrasounds no longer necessary before prescribing Mifegymiso."The guidelines tell practitioners how to do that, the training courses tell practitioners how to do that," she says.
The advent of medical abortion in Canada was meant to close those disparity gaps: women could take the drugs at home, in their own communities. But the need for an ultrasound often meant traveling long distances anyway.