eLetters

56 e-Letters

published between 2015 and 2018

  • A better way to judge fertility awareness, and the need for a better app

    In their article about Natural Cycles, Hough et al quote a Cochrane Review that dismisses fertility awareness based contraception (natural family planning).
    A Cochrane Review is an understandable choice but not an appropriate one. It would be more helpful to quote NHS Choices, the Family Planning Association or Faculty Guidance, which all have a more nuanced approach to the evidence, and say that fertility awareness is up to 99% effective.
    Typical use rates are lower but many women achieve high effectiveness thanks to either their own research or appropriate support. Books like “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” by Toni Weschler, websites like Fertility UK and apps such as Kindara, Cycle Beads and Ovuview have helped women to avoid (and plan) pregnancy for years. There is also NHS-funded fertility awareness support in some areas.
    Natural Cycles is the new app that is revolutionising fertility awareness thanks to huge amounts of funding for marketing and research and a clean design that removes all judgement from the user (in a similar way to CycleBeads) and simply pronounces a day “red” or “green”.
    The accessibility, if not the advertising, of Natural Cycles is welcome. Women need options. But it is not ideal.
    Advertising is one issue. As Hough et al describe, because Natural Cycles is not a prescribed product, and because they have substantial financial resources, they are able to bypass health professionals and advertise direct to potential c...

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  • Second doctor signature on HSA forms

    The move to single visit medical abortion[1] will be a great improvement in convenience to clients. The requirement of two doctors to sign the HSA form results in many attending and sometimes waiting for hours purely to obtain a signed form. This inconvenience could easily be removed by distant signing of such forms. In a service such as ours with an electronic patient record, readily accessed at a remove, the requirement for such attendance seems especially egregious.

    Reference
    1 Lord J, Regan L, Kasliwal A, et al. Early medical abortion: best practice now lawful in Scotland and Wales but not available to women in England. BMJ Sex Reprod Health 2018;44:155–8.

  • Endometrial sampling has been undertaken for many years in some general practices.
    It was very pleasing to see a paper reporting a pilot study of Primary care endometrial sampling1as this was something I have been involved with over the last 25 years, although I was a little disappointed that there was no reference to some of the previous work on this subject in primary care2. I published two papers on the subject in 1998, The first considered the end of the operation Dilatation and Curettage (D & C) which until the 1990s had been the investigation of choice for abnormal uterine bleeding and the emergence of new techniques such as Pipelle sampling3. The second paper I published was entitled Endometrial sampling in general practice and was a case series of 38 women investigated for unexpected vaginal bleeding4. I had introduced the procedure to the Honiton Practice in 1993; having held the qualification for intrauterine techniques for many years and having acquired further training from the local gynaecology department and taken advice from the relevant defence unions. It was not part of General Medical Services then and under new general practice arrangements it was recognized as ‘provision of secondary care within primary care’ and remunerated. It is also important to realize that the current 2 week wait referral procedure did not exist and sometimes women with abnormal bleeding could w...
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  • Comment on ‘Early medical abortion: best practice now lawful in Scotland and Wales but not available to women in England’

    Jonathan Lord, Lesley Regan and colleagues make a strong case for allowing home use of misoprostol in early medical abortion. Indeed it has been obvious for some years ever since the WHO reviewed research trials in various countries. Isn't this really the time to make both abortifacients, mifepristone and misoprostol, available off prescription?

    They are safe, reliable and easy to use. Complications requiring further medical attention after self-administration are only marginally more common than when supervised by medical staff. Dire results are rare. Is this the time to recognise that the present, medically supervised, regulated system has been outflanked by pharmaceutical technology?

    In fact abortion has become so easy that many women obviously prefer it to contraception. In 2017 approximately 74 000 abortions in England & Wales (39% of the total) were for women who had had at least one before. Whether or not repeated abortion by medical means in early pregnancy is undesirable or even harmful does not seem to have been established.

    Pills over the counter would be a popular innovation because it would enable a pregnant woman to achieve a termination more quickly and with greater privacy than now. She would, for example, not need to run the gauntlet of abortion protesters outside clinics.

    Of course there are snags and difficulties. It could not be done without a change in the laws which currently forbid self-induction of abortion and r...

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  • Home use of misoprostol: is it really safe and appreciated?

    Regarding the Scottish decision on home abortion of 26th October 2017, Lord J, Regan L, Kasliwal A, et al. claim that "Home use of misoprostol in Scotland is relatively new. The larger abortion services in Scotland report widescale uptake of home use of misoprostol among women and that it is highly appreciated with no negative impact on services." The Scottish “abortion services” consulted are not named and the reference for the bold claim that home use of misoprostol is “highly appreciated” is “S Cameron [co-author], personal communication 2018”. Such statements do not inspire confidence.

    In response to some other claims made in the article: women having better control over timing in practice will mean less precision in timing, since medical supervision is supposed to guarantee ‘correct’ time between drugs and a ‘correct’ route of administration, whether sublingual, buccal or vaginal. If these are departed from, the effectiveness goes down, and the complications go up. This is well-known.

    As regards travel and onset of bleeding, the Creinin paper [1] referred to by the authors had a bleeding onset median time of 2 hours for the standard (misoprostol taken 24 hours after mifepristone), and 3.7 hours when mifepristone and misoprostol were taken together. Others state that the onset of bleeding with the standard regimen was after 2 hours and meant light to moderate spotting at 4 hours after misoprostol [2]. Depending on the travel time, there m...

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  • Reducing the pain of IUD insertion
    Margaret Duncan

    As a general practitioner and intrauterine device (IUD) fitter for over 13 years now I applaud looking at new ways to reduce the pain of IUD insertion as described in Vincent and Sewell's letter in the October 2012 issue of the Journal,[1] and recently I have also looked into the possibility of getting some Entonox in our practice for IUD fitting. For most women the experience of having an IUD fitted is unpleasant and cr...

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  • Sexual abuse in children
    Gangadhararao Koneru

    Sexual abuse in children is a problem that often goes unnoticed by parents. Sometimes it is really difficult for parents to be aware of it. Children should not only receive sex education but should also be alerted to the possibility of assault by strangers, teachers, superiors in offices/workplaces, etc. Special counselling is required, and a great deal of psychological reassurance and support by their elders may also be n...

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  • Ulipristal acetate emergency contraception
    Graham Davies

    I read with interest the letter by Webb et al.[1] about the pitfalls of adapting the Clinical Effectiveness Unit's guidance on emergency contraception.[2] Their letter discusses, in relation to maximising the pharmacodynamic attributes of ulipristal acetate (UA), the significant inaccuracies inherent in the calculation of the timing of ovulation based on the menstrual history. However, we frequently rely on such a calcu...

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  • Nurse training and accreditation
    Myra Lamont

    I have read with interest in this Journal, since my retirement, the continuing debate over nurse training and accreditation by the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH) and am saddened that there is still no resolution. Indeed, the October 2012 issue of the Journal included three letters on this very topic [1-3].

    Nurse and midwifery training is validated through universities at diploma or graduat...

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  • Nurse SRH training and accreditation in Hull, UK
    Marian Everett

    We write in response to the article in the July 2012 issue of this Journal by Shelley Mehigan and Janice Burnett entitled 'An innovative training for nurses in sexual health'[1]. We agree wholeheartedly that a nationally recognised, standardised training for nurses in sexual and reproductive health is needed and that the best way forward may be for the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH) to accredit nurse...

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