Posted by
Board Certified M.D. on Wednesday, October 08, 2008 7:39:47 PM
Hugh Hewitt discussed California Proposition 4 today. The truth is that these Legislators you do not want parents to kown that their daughter is killing their grandchild are NUTS. An a Abortion is SURGERY! It is called Dilatation and Curettage. Vote YES on Proposition 4 which notifies parents what their child's Doctor is about to do to them!
D & C
What & why!!
What
Just what is a D & C? D & C are initials that stand for "Dilatation & Curettage". On occasion, this has been said to stand for "Dusting & Cleaning" which isn’t really all that bad a description.
According to my Webster’s unabridged, dilatation is "in medicine, enlargement of an organ cavity, duct, or opening of the body, beyond normal size". Curettage is the process of scraping and cleansing with a spoon shaped surgical instrument for removing tissues from the walls of body cavities.
In this case, we are dilating the cervical os or "opening of the uterus". Once the cervix is dilated, we then use the curette (spoon shaped instrument) to scrape the wall of the uterus and remove some of the endometrium or lining of the uterus. More commonly, one uses a set of "dilators". These are usually a set of rods of varying sizes. One starts with a small one and introduces it through the cervix. Then you just keep inserting the next larger size until you have slowly increased the opening to the desired size.
If one is performing an abortion or completing a miscarriage, a long plastic tube with a hole on the side near the end is inserted into the cavity. The outer end is attached to suction and the contents of the uterus are aspirated.
Why
The reasons for a D & C, have diminished greatly over the last 30 years. When I was a resident D & C was the most common surgical procedure. Now it is a very rare procedure except as related to pregnancy. The most common reasons for D & C today are to perform an abortion or to complete an incomplete spontaneous abortion. (In medical terms a miscarriage is a spontaneous abortion.) Most of these procedures are performed in the office or emergency room using either sedation or local anesthesia