If you are bleeding now

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Go to an ER

The label’s heavy-bleeding line is this: soak through two thick full-size sanitary pads per hour for two consecutive hours. That is the sourced threshold. Do not wait it out because you hope it will slow on its own.

Soak through two thick full-size sanitary pads per hour for two consecutive hours: that is an ER. If you are crashing before the second hour, do not wait. If you soak more than two pads in one hour and you are crashing, do not sit still for a second hour. Call 911. The two-hour line is still the label. It is not a reason to delay an ambulance. Tell the ER you took the abortion pill — mifepristone, misoprostol, or both, if you know.

Also go to an ER for fever of 100.4°F or higher lasting more than 4 hours. Abdominal pain or general malaise more than 24 hours after misoprostol belongs there too. So does worsening severe pain.

Fainting is an ER. Ordinary dizziness is expected. If you cannot stay upright when you stand, treat that like fainting and call 911.

Foul-smelling discharge is not on the Mifeprex Medication Guide. It can still mean infection after any pregnancy loss. Treat it as an ER, not as something to wait out.

Shortness of breath is not on the Medication Guide’s emergency list. It is listed among postmarketing reactions, and it can mean you are crashing. Call 911.

Serious and sometimes fatal infections and bleeding occur very rarely. No causal relationship between the use of mifepristone and misoprostol and these events has been established. Prolonged heavy bleeding may be a sign of incomplete abortion. In about 1 out of 100 women, bleeding can be so heavy that it requires a surgical procedure. Serious infection can present without fever.

Pain and bleeding can look like a miscarriage. They can also be a ruptured ectopic. They are not “just a miscarriage.”

The approved regimen is not treatment for ectopic pregnancy. A ruptured ectopic can be fatal. One-sided pain or pain at the tip of your shoulder is an ectopic concern, not a boxed-warning quote. Treat it as an ER.

FDA labeling says follow-up about 7 to 14 days after mifepristone is very important. If listed contacts cannot be reached, go to an ER.

Expected bleeding lasts days. Average spotting or bleeding after the two-medicine regimen: 9 to 16 days. Those numbers are after both medicines, not after the first pill alone. That does not cancel the two-pads-an-hour rule.

Alabama law makes it unlawful for any person to intentionally perform or attempt to perform an abortion except as the Human Life Protection Act provides. Pills are not a lawful elective abortion here. We do not sell, ship, or name vendors. This is not legal advice.

If you are not sure whether this is expected or an emergency, it is an emergency until someone can tell you it is not. Go to an ER in Birmingham, Mobile, Huntsville, Montgomery, or the closest hospital with an emergency department.

What to tell the ER

Clinicians cannot treat what you hide. Say that you took mifepristone, or misoprostol, or both, if you did. Say when. Say how much you are bleeding. Say if you have an IUD. Say if this pregnancy was never located on ultrasound.

No woman upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted shall be criminally or civilly liable under this Act. That is the Act’s sentence about the woman upon whom it is performed. It is not a full legal opinion about every other statute in Alabama. The Act’s target is not you. Still tell the ER what you took so they can treat you. This is not legal advice.

This page is not publishing a fear-of-reporting section until Lawyer writes it. Shame is not a reason to withhold the drugs from the person trying to stop the bleed.

If you may harm yourself, call or text 988. That is not the nurse chat.

What it can feel like: What it feels like. What you might pass: What you might see. After: After the pills. For more of the law, see Can I get an abortion in Alabama?.

If you are soaking pads, stop reading and call 911.

> Emergency. Soak two thick pads an hour for two consecutive hours, fainting, severe pain, or fever of 100.4°F or higher lasting more than 4 hours: 911. If you are crashing before the second hour, do not wait. If you may harm yourself, 988.

A nurse can use an interpreter. We write in English first.

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We do not sell, ship, or name vendors. Independent centers named here are not a chain.

Chat is not medical care. An emergency room is.

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