Written by Editorial Team
Cryptic pregnancy is the name given to a pregnancy that the mother is not aware of. Yes, it happens that a woman is totally ignorant of her pregnancy till the day she delivers a baby. Does it sound scary? Unbelievable? Believe us. It is possible to carry a baby all the way to the delivery without even realizing that you are pregnant.
Though it seem strange, this happens, that too, more often than you imagine. A study shows one out of about five hundred pregnancies goes undetected by the mother till 20th week of gestation. And one out of around 7225 pregnant mothers get to know about the pregnancy only when they go into the labor.
Cryptic pregnancy is a condition in which the state of pregnancy goes undetected until delivery. Some of these cases are reported by women who were told that they will not conceive by different systems of medical practices. Some of them may be on contraceptive pills or might have even tied their tubes. All these factors put them under ‘least expected to get pregnant’ category. Common pregnancy symptoms like morning sickness and fatigue are experienced by some women mildly, or there may be no such symptom. Most women are not anticipating a pregnancy and so they will dismiss these mild symptoms as symptoms due to some other condition.
The signs of cryptic pregnancy are NOT typical like a normal pregnancy. Such as:
There are a number of reasons behind a cryptic pregnancy, some are hormonal and other psychological, though, the cases fall under the psychological reasons are comparatively very few in numbers. The most important reason of cryptic pregnancy is the hormonal imbalance of the women like:
HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) is the pregnancy hormone which turns the pregnancy test positive. In a normal pregnancy, the placenta secretes HCG and it gets passed into the lining of the uterine wall. There, it gradually builds up to a sufficient amount and gets released into urine and blood of the mother, thus, getting detected in the pregnancy tests. Whereas:
Though an ultrasound should detect a pregnancy if it is there, some results of the ultrasound during a cryptic pregnancy will be negative. This could happen if the lab technician is not so experienced in detecting the pregnancy due to the below mentioned abnormalities.
These scar tissues possibly require a careful observation for a pregnancy to be detected.
This is because HCG never gets into the maternal system as in normal pregnancy, the maternal body will be incapable of generating signals which are significant for the development of the baby. Thus, the fetus in the cryptic pregnancy grows much slower and thus the pregnancy takes longer period to complete. The cryptic babies are found to measure significantly smaller than they should be at that particular gestational period. This answers the longer gestational period
Another reason is, continued period throughout the pregnancy time. It is also found that the heavier the bleeding, longer will be the gestational period.
The first thing that someone would say about a cryptic pregnancy is how can a woman not anticipate a pregnancy when she misses on her periods? But the thing to understand here is that NOT all women have monthly and regular menstrual cycles. And if they continue to bleed occasionally also during the pregnancy, a woman might mistake it as a period bleeding. The less bleeding may be attributed to stress or other problems. Sometimes, irregular bleeding may be mistaken as a sign of menopause.
The point to note here is that if you experience some of the pregnancy symptoms or there is something that doesn’t feel quite right, make an appointment with the doctor as soon as possible.
***DISCLAIMER: Not all information in this article has been backed with medical evidences. The Administrator/owner/editor/author of this page/website, and any associates working with the management of this page disclaim any liability in connection with the use of information contained on this page***
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