Her Doctor Gave Her Abortion Pills By Mistake and She Took Them, Thankfully Her Baby Survived

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Jul 14, 2017   |   11:47AM   |   Washington, DC

A pregnant woman in Winnipeg has suffered from a month of fears that her unborn baby boy would die after she said her doctor mistakenly gave her abortion drugs.

Serissa McKay, 21, is due July 16, and her unborn baby appears to be ok, Mims reports. However, the young mother has been worrying for nearly a month that her doctor’s alleged mistake would harm or kill her unborn son.

“You’re supposed to trust your doctor,” McKay said.

McKay said she received the abortion pills during a prenatal checkup on June 21 at her doctor’s office. Thinking that they were drugs routinely used in pregnancy, McKay said she went home and took them as instructed.

But what her doctor reportedly gave her was the abortion drug misoprostol, which induces labor, according to the Winnipeg Free Press. McKay said she was instructed to insert four pills in her vagina and wait several hours before taking several more.

McMaster University Professor Dusstin Costescu said McKay’s description of the pills and the method of taking them fits the description of misoprostol, an abortion drug which also is used as an ulcer medication.

Pro-life advocates may be familiar with the drug, which commonly is coupled with mifepristone (RU-486) to abort unborn babies in the first trimester. Doctors have developed a process for reversing RU-486 after the mother takes the abortion drug; however, the abortion reversal process does not work once the woman takes the second drug, misoprostol – the drug that McKay took.

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Costescu said the drug comes in two doses: 100 or 200 micrograms, and what McKay took was a much higher dose than doctors typically use.

“With labour induction at term, it can be used in as small as 25 to 50mg,” Costescu said. “So you use an eighth or even a 16th of the dose you use in first trimester.”

McKay said her doctor’s office quickly realized the mistake. She said they called her at home right after she had inserted the pills, and asked her to come to the office immediately and have them removed.

“I was pretty much in shock,” McKay said. “It didn’t really hit me until I actually got home.”

Here’s more from the Free Press:

She said the receptionist made her feel bad for not recognizing the pills or realizing they weren’t for her to take.

The Free Press is not naming the doctor or clinic because neither party could be reached for comment Wednesday.

“It was actually pretty painful,” McKay said of the removal process.

McKay said the doctor carried on as if it was a routine appointment, asking her if she had any questions or concerns.

“What will happen? I took pills that I wasn’t supposed to, so what should I watch for?” McKay said she asked the doctor.

She said the doctor told her to watch for cramping and signs of labour — and admitted the drugs had been intended for a woman who had suffered a miscarriage.

McKay said her doctor has not apologized or acknowledged how serious the mistake was. She filed a complaint with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba.

She said she is not comfortable with her doctor, but she was told it may be too late for her to switch before she gives birth.

LifeNews has reported similar cases in the past. In February, a hospital in India also allegedly gave a pregnant woman abortion drugs by mistake. The mother, Dr. Tarannum Wasif Khan, a dentist from Kurla, India, claims one of her unborn twins died as a result of the mistake.

In 2015, a British woman said an OB-GYN clinic wrongly told her that her unborn baby had died and gave her abortion drugs to induce labor to expel her dead baby’s body. However, three weeks later, when the woman fainted and went to the hospital, they discovered that her unborn baby still was alive.

In a sickening case out of Australia several years ago, the Royal Women’s Hospital allegedly aborted the “wrong” twin. One of the unnamed woman’s twins was healthy, but the other had a congenital heart defect; and she chose to have the unhealthy twin aborted. However, something went wrong and doctors accidentally aborted the “wrong” baby, according to the allegations. In the end, both of the woman’s unborn babies ended up dying.