Cryptic Pregnancy or Cryptic Pregnancy, Cases of Undetected Pregnancy
Cryptic pregnancy can be known during the third trimester and even when you are about to give birth! A cryptic pregnancy, or cryptic pregnancy, is a pregnancy that may fail to be detected by conventional medical testing methods. Evidence suggests that women may be unaware of their pregnancy in up to 1 in 475 cases, according to the BMJ Case Report.
CRYPTIC PREGNANCY |
Usually, this creates mixed emotions. Different from pregnancies that are known too late, for example in the second month, cryptic pregnancies can be discovered during the third trimester and even when they are about to give birth.
Symptoms of Cryptic Pregnancy
To understand how a cryptic pregnancy can go undetected, it helps you to know what a normal pregnancy looks like in its early stages. In the United States, most women find out that they are pregnant within 5 to 12 weeks of conception.
After missing a period, a home pregnancy test will generally show a 'positive' result. Urine tests, blood tests, and ultrasound at the obstetrician will confirm the pregnancy. Most people exhibit pregnancy symptoms such as tender and swollen breasts, mood swings, fatigue, and nausea early on during the first trimester.
When you have a cryptic pregnancy, nothing triggers the chain of events that leads to the result that you are pregnant. The pregnancy test may come back negative even after you have missed your period. You may also dismiss nausea in early pregnancy as a stomach flu or indigestion.
Maybe you've been told that you're experiencing infertility, or irregular periods from the start, which means that pregnancy isn't a possibility you tend to consider. If you're pregnant but don't realize it, the missing pregnancy symptoms can add to the confusion. Especially if you've never been pregnant before, so it's easier to ignore pregnancy symptoms like fetal movement, slight weight gain, and fatigue.
Low levels of pregnancy hormones can mean pregnancy symptoms are very mild or almost impossible to notice.
Causes of Cryptic Pregnancy
Fluctuating hormones can cause slight menstrual-like bleeding. If you have irregular periods and feel mostly the same as usual, you might be wondering why take a pregnancy test?
This is what causes how many people can go months without knowing that they are pregnant. Conditions associated with a cryptic pregnancy include:
- Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). This condition can limit fertility, create hormonal imbalances, and cause missed or irregular periods.
- Perimenopause. This is the time between when menstruation begins to grow less consistently and when it stops completely, which is marked by menopause. Pregnancy symptoms such as weight gain and hormonal fluctuations can mimic the symptoms of perimenopause.
- Birth control pills and the intrauterine device (IUD) can make you feel confident that pregnancy is not a possibility. While this method of preventing pregnancy is very effective, there are instances of someone being able to get pregnant despite using an IUD.
- It is possible to get pregnant again after pregnancy and before menstruation returns. This is because breastfeeding and hormonal factors can cause the body to delay ovulation and menstruation for several months after giving birth, you may think these symptoms are just the body adjusting to the postpartum state.
Time and Examples of Cryptic Pregnancy Cases
Sources vary on how long a cryptic pregnancy can last. It is difficult to collect data on this subject. That's because women who don't know their pregnancy can only tell when their pregnancy ended, not how long it started. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it can last longer than a typical pregnancy, possibly related to very low hormone levels.
On the other hand, there are also cases where lack of prenatal care, poor diet, and lifestyle choices that make a person unaware of their pregnancy can increase the chances of premature birth. There are many stories of women claiming not to know they were pregnant. There is one story about a 23 year old woman who went to the ER because of low back pain.
Upon arrival, she took a routine pregnancy test before being checked in, which revealed that she was pregnant. Even more surprising, when doctors started checking for an ectopic pregnancy, they found that she was 8 centimeters dilated or almost ready for delivery. And she finally gave birth to a healthy baby boy. In addition, NBC News reported several cases of 'stealth births' in 2009.
According to their report, the woman was rushed to the ER with what she and her family thought was appendicitis, whereupon she was called in because she had been in the middle of labor with the feeling of the baby's head popping. The baby was also born and remains healthy.
A European Journal of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology study shows that without prenatal care, babies are much more likely to be born prematurely and be underweight at birth.
Cryptic Pregnancy Facts
There are some interesting facts related to cryptic pregnancy. Because, there is no clarity about what kind of women can experience this cryptic pregnancy.
The majority of women studied, contrary to popular belief. For example having good social support, which leads to the conclusion that external stressors and conflict can have an adverse effect on well-adjusted women.
Thus, women who underwent occult pregnancies were part of a heterogeneous group with no clear identifiable characteristics.
Therefore, doctors should be more aware of the possibility of a occult pregnancy and undergo a thorough examination of women who exhibit pregnancy-related symptoms.
Some other facts about a cryptic pregnancy are:
1. Believed to be a Mental Disorder
Initially, there were those who believed that a cryptic pregnancy was related to the presence of a mental disorder in a woman.
However, studies show conflicting evidence regarding the association of occult pregnancy with psychiatric disorders. Psychiatric symptoms associated with schizophrenia, depression or personality disorders are only prominent in a minority of cases, and so are not recognized as essential features of occult pregnancy.
2. Pseudomenstrual Bleeding and Not Nausea
Many women experience a cryptic pregnancy which is characterized by no menstruation, regular menstruation, and also no nausea.
More importantly, none of the women who reported not being aware of pregnancy until delivery experienced nausea. These results suggest that there is an association between the absence of nausea and other symptoms such as reduced abdominal swelling and low birth weight.
This may be the reason why the pregnancy remains hidden and in most cases is rejected until the birth of the child. Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a placental hormone that plays an important role during pregnancy.
This hormone is involved in many aspects of pregnancy symptoms, by triggering the release of maternal progesterone and may inhibit menstruation.
3. The Hypothesis Regarding Occult Pregnancy
The currently available evidence from a biological standpoint of occult pregnancy is limited. Several epidemiological studies provide more information on the topic.
However, this evidence is circumstantial and insufficient to inform an explanatory theory. Women use body cues to determine whether they are pregnant or not. In the case of a cryptic pregnancy, this cue is reduced or absent. Therefore, in the absence of cues, pregnancy is not assumed.
- Hypothesis 1: This hypothesis looks at missed abortions as an explanation of the occult pregnancy phenomenon. If a fetus whose hCG production is close to the threshold of maternal rejection survives early pregnancy without abortion, it can survive to delivery despite the mother's low investment in pregnancy.
- Hypothesis 2: This hypothesis sees cryptic pregnancy as an adaptive mechanism in stressful life conditions. Research with an Australian sample supports this claim by demonstrating a high incidence of psychosocial stress in mothers.
Thus an explanation of cryptic pregnancy that can be used for moms to be more alert if symptoms of pregnancy appear.
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