Medical Review and Clinical Standards
Patients deserve to know who is responsible for the medical information on a website they're using to make decisions about their own bodies.
This page describes who oversees clinical care at Southern Woven, what standards we follow, and how every clinical document on this site is reviewed before publication.
If you're a patient, what you most need to know is short: every piece of clinical content on this site is reviewed by a credentialed clinician before it goes live, and we follow established standards from the major medical bodies that govern abortion care. The rest of this page explains exactly what that means.
Who reviews clinical content
Clinical oversight at Southern Woven is led by a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) credentialed by the American Midwifery Certification Board, with active licensure in more than a dozen U.S. states.
The clinical reviewer's experience includes labor and delivery, women's health, and complex gynecology, with practice going back to 2010. Telehealth medication abortion is a specific subset of that practice — focused on early pregnancy care delivered asynchronously with a strong emphasis on patient-reported information, evidence-based protocols, and harm reduction principles applied to reproductive autonomy.
For privacy reasons consistent with the operational realities of telehealth abortion care in the current legal environment, we do not publish the clinical reviewer's name. This is a choice many clinicians providing this kind of care make, and it reflects security considerations rather than any uncertainty about the credentials, which are verifiable through state licensure boards in any of the states where care is provided.
The standards we follow
Clinical content on this site is reviewed against current guidance from:
- American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) — the primary U.S. professional body for obstetric and gynecologic medicine. ACOG's Practice Bulletins on medication abortion, early pregnancy loss, and contraception guide our protocols.
- World Health Organization (WHO) — whose 2022 Abortion Care Guideline is the most current comprehensive international clinical guidance on abortion care, including telemedicine delivery. WHO guidance is the reason we serve patients through 13 weeks of pregnancy.
- National Abortion Federation (NAF) — whose clinical policy guidelines are the long-standing reference for abortion care standards in the U.S.
- Society of Family Planning (SFP) — whose clinical recommendations cover specific aspects of medication abortion care, including for patients with complicating factors.
When any of these bodies update their guidance, our clinical content is reviewed and revised to reflect the change.
A few specific examples of how this looks in practice:
- The 13-week gestational limit cited throughout this site follows WHO's 2022 guidance, not the more conservative 11-week limit some U.S. providers use.
- Our position that ultrasound is not required for most patients before medication abortion reflects current ACOG and WHO guidance, supported by extensive evidence that last menstrual period and clinical history are sufficient for the majority of cases.
- Our pain management protocols reflect current evidence on combining NSAIDs with acetaminophen for medication abortion symptoms.
- Our position that Rh testing and RhoGAM administration are not required for medication abortion before 12 weeks aligns with current ACOG, WHO, and NAF guidance.
These are not idiosyncratic positions. They reflect the current consensus of the medical bodies that set abortion care standards.
Our editorial and review process
Every piece of clinical content published on this site — including blog articles, FAQ answers, state-specific information, and patient-facing care instructions — goes through the same review process before publication:
- 1Drafting against current standards.Initial drafts are developed with explicit reference to the standards listed above. We start from "what does ACOG/WHO/NAF/SFP currently say" and build from there.
- 2Clinical review by a credentialed clinician. The clinical reviewer reads every draft, fact-checks specific claims against current guidelines, flags any clinical statement that needs adjustment, and signs off before publication.
- 3Cross-checking against current evidence. Statistical claims (effectiveness rates, complication rates, contraindications) are verified against current peer-reviewed sources. Where evidence has changed, content is updated rather than left in place.
- 4Patient-readability review. Clinical content is reviewed for plain-language accessibility. The target reading level is roughly sixth to eighth grade — accessible to patients with varying education levels without sacrificing accuracy.
- 5Final publication. Content is published only after clinical sign-off. Nothing is published from a queue or scheduled in advance without that step.
This is slower than how many websites publish content. We're comfortable with that tradeoff.
Our policy on AI-assisted content
We're going to be more direct about this than most sites:
We use AI tools in our content workflow. Specifically, AI tools are sometimes used to help find information, to help put together initial drafts, and to help structure long-form articles.
What AI tools never do:
- AI does not write final clinical content. Every AI-assisted draft is read in full by the clinical reviewer, edited for accuracy, and rewritten where the AI produced phrasing that was imprecise, outdated, or wrong.
- AI does not generate clinical recommendations, dosing, or protocols.Those come from the medical bodies listed above and from the clinical reviewer's training.
- AI does not publish anything without human clinical review.There is no "automated" content pipeline.
- AI does not review or approve other AI-generated content. Review is always human, always clinical.
This is part of why we publish less frequently than larger sites with paid editorial staff. Reviewing AI-assisted drafts carefully takes longer than approving content written by colleagues we trust, and we do not cut corners on the review.
We're explicit about this for a reason: increasingly, medical content on the internet is being generated by AI tools without human review, and patients have no way to tell the difference. Our position is that disclosure is more honest than denial.
How we handle clinical uncertainty
Medication abortion is well-studied, but not every clinical question has a definitive answer. Where evidence is incomplete or experts disagree, we say so rather than picking a side and presenting it as settled.
A few examples:
- The optimal misoprostol dose for patients later in the first trimester is an area of ongoing study. Our protocols follow current guidance, but we describe the range of accepted approaches rather than claiming there is only one right answer.
- Long-term psychological outcomes after medication abortion are well-studied at the population level but vary by individual circumstance. Our content describes the population-level evidence (abortion is not associated with increased rates of depression, regret, or other adverse mental health outcomes at the population level) while acknowledging that individual experiences vary.
Honesty about the limits of evidence is part of evidence-based care, not a departure from it.
Corrections and updates
If you believe something on this site is medically inaccurate or out of date, write to us at hello@southernwoven.com. Verified corrections are made promptly, and substantive updates to clinical content are tracked in the page's modification metadata.
Clinical content on this site is reviewed periodically as professional guidelines evolve. Specific articles are revised when the underlying guidance changes; the modification date on each article reflects when that review last happened.
For more about Southern Woven's mission and the community context this work is part of, see the about page.
If you're trying to determine whether Southern Woven can serve you, the consultation formis the fastest path. It takes about 15 minutes and will tell you immediately whether we're able to provide care in your situation.
For legal questions about your specific situation, the If/When/How Repro Legal Helpline (844-868-2812) is free and confidential.
This is educational content only and is not medical or legal advice. Medication abortion regimens may vary, and the right plan for you depends on your specific situation. For care decisions, talk to your provider. For legal questions, contact If/When/How at 844-868-2812.