Is my baby going to be ok if I take the first abortion pill and decide to reverse the effects?  What does progesterone do anyway?  What about birth defects? 

These are some of the many questions that come up when considering the Abortion Pill Reversal (APR).  To best answer these questions, one needs to understand how the abortion pill works.

A chemical abortion (aka the abortion pill) consists of two medications. The first pill taken is mifepristone which blocks progesterone’s actions in the uterus and placenta.  Progesterone is the natural hormone in a woman’s body that is necessary to nurture and sustain a pregnancy.  The second pill is misoprostol and it causes a woman to go into early labor.

After taking the first pill, there is an optimum window of 24 hours where extra progesterone can be taken to reverse the effects. (If you are past this 24 hours, please reach out to the APR hotline.  It may not be too late.)  The progesterone helps to outnumber and outcompete the mifepristone in order to reverse its effect. This allows the nutrition to get through to the uterus and placenta.

One way to think of it is… the first pill is a dam that stops the water from flowing and providing the needed sustenance downstream.  But if the dam is overpowered by the amount of water in a short period of time, that nutrition can be restored without lasting effects.  With the reversal, added progesterone is like overpowering the dam of mifepristone to allow nutrition to start flowing downstream again to the uterus.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) (Practice Bulletin Number 143, March 2014, reaffirmed 2016) states that “no evidence exists to date” that mifepristone, RU-486, causes birth defects. Progesterone has been safely used in pregnancy for over 50 years. Initial studies have found that the birth defect rate in babies born after the APR is less than or equal to the rate in the general population.  So neither mifepristone nor progesterone is associated with birth defects.

Still have more questions about the Abortion Pill Reversal?  Check out the following website for more info: https://www.abortionpillreversal.com/abortion-pill-reversal/faq.