About 2% of all pregnancies is ectopic. And this is the main cause of death for women in the 1st trimester: risk of death with this complication is 10 times higher than at birth, and 50 – than the abortion.
What is the state?
Usually, when a woman becomes pregnant, the fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall and begins to grow there. But sometimes it remains in the fallopian tube, the ovary, in the cervix or even the abdominal cavity. This is an ectopic pregnancy.
Fallopieve pipe (most often the egg is fixed there) too narrow for the fetus, and its thin wall is not able to stretch as the uterus. By about 7-8 weeks it breaks and starts bleeding. This is very dangerous: if a large vessel is damaged, a woman can die from loss of blood.
Why is this happening?
Here are the main risk factors:
- Infection. Her fallopian tubes may become impassable, and the egg can not move.
- Scars. They appear after surgery or infection and can block the way to the uterus.
- Anatomical features of the fallopian tubes. It happens that they just developed from birth is wrong.
What are the symptoms of ectopic pregnancy?
When the tube ruptures, the woman feels nausea and sharp pain in the lower abdomen that may radiate to the shoulder, shoulder blade and neck. Her pupils dilate, breathing becomes shallow, and the pulse is barely noticeable. The symptoms can be confused with appendicitis or poisoning, because the blood breaks out, and goes into the abdominal cavity. If you have any doubts, you should immediately call an ambulance: procrastination can result in death.
If rupture has not occurred yet, an ectopic pregnancy can give the following signs:
- Delay of menstruation and hardly noticeable second stripe on the blanket;
- Increase in basal body temperature;
- Engorgement of the nipples;
- Nausea, vomiting, weakness, loss of appetite;
- Periodic pain in the abdomen;
- The pain during intercourse;
- Spotting.
In General, symptoms similar to those experienced by a woman during normal pregnancy. If they appeared, you should immediately contact your gynecologist.
How to treat this pathology?
Ectopic pregnancy is usually surgery: get an egg through a small incisions in the abdomen. Wounds completely heal in 2-3 weeks. Sometimes doctors can cause a miscarriage with the help of hormonal medication. But this method has appeared recently, and assign it only in the early stages.
Transplant the embryo into the uterus is impossible: such operations do not exist, and the uterus is not ready to receive the fruit.
Up to 60% of men experience symptoms of pregnancy simultaneously with the future mother: some even increases the chest and growing belly. For detailed information about this phenomenon told in the article “We’re pregnant! Why man feels “in position”.