Not Knowing you're Pregnant?

mountainofdebt

going sightly off topic, I just wonder what affect this will have for women in the armed forces.

Reguar pregnancy testing becoming compulsory perhaps?

newcook

My friends mom didn’t realize she was pregnant - She was still wearing her size 10 jeans and having regular periods!

The night she went into labour, she had been at the pub with her hubby when she started getting really bad pains so they went to the hospital thinking it was a ruptured appendix… after an examination etc they came out to hubby and said ‘its good news, she doesn’t have appendicitis – however, if you would like to accompany me to the labour ward as your wife is about to have a baby!’ luckily that was when the mothers were kept in for a few days so the dad had time to race around shops for things they would need and to tell family to get shopping and knitting!!

The baby is now nearly 30, married and 6 months pregnant herself with only a tiny bump – its not even as if they are a small family, her dad is 6ft 3 and she is 5ft 10!!

redfragglebiker

It can happen cos it did to me!
Put on half a stone but had gone from a manual to office job, had always had irregular periods and continued to have them, no morning sickness, no pains or moement that didn't just feel like a good dose of wind brweing up.
Went to Doctor on call one night as I was having severe pains and thought that I might be having appendix style issues only to have an ambulance called as I was in last stages of labour... 20 mins later one healthy baby boy weighting 7lb (who I later had adopted before I left hospital cos of the disaster zone that was my life at the time)
I was in NO kind of denial and even the guy I was (stupidly) living with at the time had no idea I was preggo. It can happen ladies

Nicki

I knew someone who didn't realise until she was nearly 6 months pregnant with her 4th child. She only discovered because one of the party games at a hen party involved everyone there POAS . She was also very slim with a flat tummy (I'd say about a size 12)

I think if the placenta is at the front, you don't feel the baby kicking, and some women do bleed during pregnancy when their periods would be roughly due (decidual bleeding). I always knew when I was pregnant though, and after the first had a huge bump within a few weeks of a BFP, to go along with the morning sickness and pelvic girdle pain. I'd love to sail through oblivious I think!

harrys_nan

going back quite a few years, early 70's. Mt typing tutor went into hospital in an asthma attack and came out with a baby, she didn't know at all, she was a larger lady so no bump showed.l

GracieP

dizsiebubba wrote: »

but the baby doesn't stay in that funny position...it moves about!

You can obviously feel yours a lot but you know you are pregnant so were probably eagerly awaiting the feeling of movement and paying attention as the movement increased, becoming more and more in tune with it. If you were unaware of being pregnant you might not have associated those feelings with a foetus moving about inside you.

And a large number of things could alter how much you would feel. To not notice a bump growing would have to be down to one or both of two factors. The mother would have to be quite overweight and/or there would have to be very little amniotic fluid in the sac. Being overweight can reduce your perception of movement. Very little fluid in the sac will result in the baby not having a lot of space to move about. Add to that something like an anterior placenta and it's very possible that someone who wasn't concentrating on feeling movement could easily attribute any movement that they do feel to a sick tummy. And considering that in pregnancy it's fairly common to have frequent constipation, bouts of diarrhoea, persistently painful wind, nausea and heartburn it would be understandable for someone to think their tummy is in turmoil.

There is no way I wouldn't have known I was pregnant. Even if I hadn't been trying to conceive and testing as soon as I could. I went from periods like clockwork to none whatsoever, my stomach bloated up so fast I had a mini-bump by 7 weeks, I puked so much and so horribly for months that I would have definitely gone to see a doctor who would have confirmed it. And if I'd somehow missed all the rest I got SPD at about the halfway point which again would have had me seeing my doctor. But my experience isn't universal and plenty of women have very few symptoms, aren't used to regular periods or get enough bleeding during the the pregnancy to assume they are having periods, and don't get much of a bump. They can also be really preoccupied with some other part of their lives, like being a soldier in a war zone, and just not be paying that much attention to every feeling they experience.

raven83

Same thing happened to my nan when she was pregnant with my mum (ok this going back nearly 70 years ago) but she didn't know she was pregnant, she had no movements and still had periods, she did get cravings and hot flushes but put this down to starting the change. She was stunned when she went to the doctors and they said that it was time for her to go into hospital to give birth to her baby!!!!!

ZsaZsa

I had an anterior placenta with my eldest, it was really late on before I felt anything, and even then I'm not sure I would have recognised them as baby movements if I didn't know I was pregnant. However, the fact that I was the size of the house was a bit of a giveaway!!

janninew

Its amazing how many people in just this thread alone know lots of women this has happened to! According to the BBC web-site an obstetrician would see such a case 'around once a year' but there are no actual figures.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19660845

It does say women being in denial about being pregnant is more common.

Nicki

The obstetrician on Radio 4 news this morning said 1 in 1000 births in UK are a concealed pregnancy and in Ireland about 1 in 180