Ectopic pregnancy
Although an ectopic pregnancy is not a miscarriage, often the early symptoms are similar. You should be aware of the difference, as an ectopic pregnancy can seriously damage the fallopian tube, may affect your future fertility, and could ultimately rupture the tube, endangering your life through acute blood loss.
No one is quite sure why ectopic pregnancies happen. But the fertilized ovum may have taken too long to travel own the fallopian tube and, on the 7th day, instead of reaching the uterus where is should implant, it embeds itself in the tube where the beginning of a pregnancy are acted out.
Pregnancy hormones are produced as sufficient levels to make you miss a period and produce a positive pregnancy test. You may not find out about the condition until your first visit to the doctor. An internal examination will reveal that the uterus has not expanded as in a normal pregnancy. An ultrasound scan will not always show the pregnancy in the tube, but it will show the uterus to be empty.
Symptoms to watch out for are the lack of pregnancy symptoms or less nausea or vomiting than in normal pregnancy, some low abnormal cramping, and slight spotting or staining of blood. Other indicators are a feeling of dizziness and shoulder-trip pain. If such pain or bleeding persists, you must report to your doctor or the hospital, as you don’t want to delay the diagnosis. But remember, too, that tubal pregnancy is fairly rare, and the diagnosis will probably be of a normal pregnancy, and your worries will have been for nothing.
With early treatment, an ectopic pregnancy can be removed and the tube saved, thus also perhaps saving your fertility. So, if you have noticed a missed period, associated with low cramplike abdominal pain and scant or dark spotting, do see your doctor as quickly as possible—particularly if you have a history of high-risk factors, such as the past or present use of an intrauterine device or infection in your tubes (salpingitis), which may promote tubal pregnancies.
Your doctor will diagnose your tubal (ectopic) pregnancy by monitoring hormone levels in your blood and by using abdominal or transvaginal sonography. When removing the ectopic pregnancy, your doctor will use either an instrument called a laparoscope, which does not require a wide incision which opens you abdomen.
Laparoscopy is an operative procedure which requires hospitalization and is done under general anesthesia. It requires that you are admitted on the morning of the procedure, not having eaten or drunk from midnight of that day.
In the operating room, an intravenous infusion is started and the anesthesiologist then gives you a general anesthetic. Once you are asleep the gynecologist distends your abdomen with carbon dioxide gas which allows him to pass a viewing instrument (laparoscope) through a tiny incision in your umbilicus. Additional probes are placed through small puncture wounds (at the pubic hair line) to help the doctor to move your organs for better inspection and to assist in removing the pregnancy from the tube.
The operation takes about forty-five minutes to one hour. You can usually leave the hospital after a few further hours in the recovery room. Occasionally you may have to remain in the hospital overnight. The stitches do not require removal, and the scar is in the umbilicus. This procedure for treating an ectopic pregnancy through a laparoscope is new and is not applicable in all cases. Your doctor will decide on which approach to use.
Although an ectopic pregnancy is not a miscarriage, often the early symptoms are similar. You should be aware of the difference, as an ectopic pregnancy can seriously damage the fallopian tube, may affect your future fertility, and could ultimately rupture the tube, endangering your life through acute blood loss.
No one is quite sure why ectopic pregnancies happen. But the fertilized ovum may have taken too long to travel own the fallopian tube and, on the 7th day, instead of reaching the uterus where is should implant, it embeds itself in the tube where the beginning of a pregnancy are acted out.
Pregnancy hormones are produced as sufficient levels to make you miss a period and produce a positive pregnancy test. You may not find out about the condition until your first visit to the doctor. An internal examination will reveal that the uterus has not expanded as in a normal pregnancy. An ultrasound scan will not always show the pregnancy in the tube, but it will show the uterus to be empty.
Symptoms to watch out for are the lack of pregnancy symptoms or less nausea or vomiting than in normal pregnancy, some low abnormal cramping, and slight spotting or staining of blood. Other indicators are a feeling of dizziness and shoulder-trip pain. If such pain or bleeding persists, you must report to your doctor or the hospital, as you don’t want to delay the diagnosis. But remember, too, that tubal pregnancy is fairly rare, and the diagnosis will probably be of a normal pregnancy, and your worries will have been for nothing.
With early treatment, an ectopic pregnancy can be removed and the tube saved, thus also perhaps saving your fertility. So, if you have noticed a missed period, associated with low cramplike abdominal pain and scant or dark spotting, do see your doctor as quickly as possible—particularly if you have a history of high-risk factors, such as the past or present use of an intrauterine device or infection in your tubes (salpingitis), which may promote tubal pregnancies.
Your doctor will diagnose your tubal (ectopic) pregnancy by monitoring hormone levels in your blood and by using abdominal or transvaginal sonography. When removing the ectopic pregnancy, your doctor will use either an instrument called a laparoscope, which does not require a wide incision which opens you abdomen.
Laparoscopy is an operative procedure which requires hospitalization and is done under general anesthesia. It requires that you are admitted on the morning of the procedure, not having eaten or drunk from midnight of that day.
In the operating room, an intravenous infusion is started and the anesthesiologist then gives you a general anesthetic. Once you are asleep the gynecologist distends your abdomen with carbon dioxide gas which allows him to pass a viewing instrument (laparoscope) through a tiny incision in your umbilicus. Additional probes are placed through small puncture wounds (at the pubic hair line) to help the doctor to move your organs for better inspection and to assist in removing the pregnancy from the tube.
The operation takes about forty-five minutes to one hour. You can usually leave the hospital after a few further hours in the recovery room. Occasionally you may have to remain in the hospital overnight. The stitches do not require removal, and the scar is in the umbilicus. This procedure for treating an ectopic pregnancy through a laparoscope is new and is not applicable in all cases. Your doctor will decide on which approach to use.
