Early Abortion

What Is Manual Vacuum Aspiration?

The MVA procedure is the same as abortion by vacuum aspiration with the advantage of using a hand held syringe instead of an aspiration machine. Women don’t have to hear the sound of the machine and there is usually less discomfort as the pregnancy is being removed. The MVA procedure also takes a few minutes to completely remove the contents of the uterus. At Women’s Health Specialists, our physicians are trained in this quieter technique. Unfortunately, many physicians in other clinics do not do this procedure because they have not been trained to use this method, making MVA a unique procedure at Women's Health Specialists.

At Women's Health Specialists, we use MVA for women in early stages of the first trimester of pregnancy. In the early first trimester of pregnancy, women can choose the MVA or "the abortion pill". MVA is a surgical aspiration (suction) method abortion, provided in a safe clinic setting. With MVA, the procedure is like a first trimester procedure described above. An injection to numb the cervix is used, and a small sterile tube is inserted into the uterus. The pregnancy is removed by creating suction with a hand held syringe, instead of the aspirator machine described above. Many women prefer this method because the suction used with MVA is less noisy than the aspiration machine.