A discussion started on X (formerly Twitter) about how sudden unexplained weight gain in women could be a result of abortion or abortions.
Abortion is a crime in Nigeria (except to save the life of the mother), which leaves the market for illegal abortions wide open since premarital sex happens quite often.
We decided to investigate from a medical standpoint if indeed abortion can lead women to gain weight in the ‘right’ places.
Do abortions cause weight gain?
We spoke to Lolu, a medical doctor with over seven years of experience who is currently practicing medicine in the United States, about this. Here’s what he had to say:
"From a medical rationality, it’s very illogical for a woman to get pregnant solely for weight gain.
Abortions are usually safer in the first trimester of pregnancy, and that’s when women typically abort.
In that first trimester most women usually have not gained any weight at all; they even lose weight at this point because that's when they vomit so badly and have several food and smell aversions—so they eat very poorly, become anaemic, and may lose weight or stay the same.
If you abort at this phase, you likely won’t be any different, or may even look worse.
Then there's the stress of abortion itself. Whether it is by drug or by surgical procedure, the blood loss, pain, and mental and psychoemotional stress could potentially cause you to lose more weight in this phase.
The weight gain of pregnancy is really in late 2nd and 3rd trimesters, and I doubt that ladies keep a pregnancy that long to get that big only to terminate it because they want to look swollen."
ALSO READ: The cost of morality: How Nigeria’s own anti-abortion stance is killing women at an alarming rate
An article from Healthline states, “Weight gain after an abortion should not occur due to a physiological response from your body.”
The article does make an exception that hormonal fluctuations can increase a woman’s appetite after an abortion and cause her to eat more.
When a person gains weight, it’s usually because they are eating and drinking unhealthy foods and drinks and not because they just aborted a baby
Finally, it’s unfair to stigmatise women who gain weight naturally because of preconceived and unscientific ideas.