Our Baby News

WHAT IS A PHANTOM PREGNANCY?

Probably the most famous of phantom pregnancies – also called false pregnancy or pseudocyesis – was that experienced by Queen Mary of England in the sixteenth century.

One form of test that is no longer used involved giving a woman a dose of extra hormone. The theory was that if she was not pregnant, she would have a withdrawal bleed -like a period – as soon as she stopped the course of hormone, while if she was pregnant, there would be no bleeding. These tests are now known to be unsafe, since they can cause damage to the baby if the woman is pregnant.

The most important are breast signs. These, in concert with a missed period (or a very scanty period), are very powerful evidence of pregnancy.The breasts become full, enlarged and tender, and, particularly in fair-skinned women, the blood vessels on the surface may appear very much more prominent. The areola – the pinky-brown part that surrounds the nipple – feels tender and may tingle (‘like someone is holding a match to them’ is a graphic and far from uncommon description!). The part of the breast that lies just in front of the armpit often shares the swelling and may become quite tender, so that the woman finds it uncomfortable to rest her arms against her sides. And there will appear, on each areola, little white bumps, like whiteheads. These are called Montgomery’s tubercles (and the word has nothing to do with TB – it merely means ‘bumps’!) and will provide the extra lubrication material the nipple will need for the baby when he feeds. Gentle squeezing of the nipple at a later stage (16 weeks) may produce a bead or two of colostrums, the precursor of breast milk.

IS A MISSED PERIOD ALWAYS THE FIRST SIGN OF A PREGNANCY?

Usually it is – however, not every missed period necessarily means a pregnancy. There can be a great many causes for a missed period, many of them emotional.

Certainly not by dangling wedding rings over the mother’s abdomen, one of the battery of ‘detection’ systems that have been used over the centuries.

Sometimes – depending on the cause. If there is a ‘blighted ovum’, then the loss is inevitable.

There may be more complications with a twin pregnancy than a singleton; the mother may suffer more nausea and vomiting, and may be more anaemic as her babies make more demands on her resources, and she may be more likely to develop preeclampsia.

The diagnosis of twins is not as easy as it might be thought. Even though the mother has regular examinations by the midwife and doctor and they listen to the heartbeats of the babies, the second infant may be so placed inside the mother’s womb that he just can’t be heard or detected – and of course twins tend to be smaller babies than singletons.

An impossible question to answer! It depends on the couple’s age, their health, the time at which they have intercourse and their emotional state .

IS IT WISE TO HAVE A BABY WHEN THERE IS A FAMILY HISTORY OF ILLNESS?

These days more and more people are taking a more and more responsible attitude towards childbearing. There was a time when people went ahead and had babies without even considering whether they were fit to do so. Today, fertility via modern birth control becomes ever more easy, parents-to-be tend to be more concerned about the possibility of bearing an unhealthy or damaged child.

If there is a known family history of illnesses which can be passed on – such as Huntington’s Chorea, Duchene muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, hemophilia,