How To Detect This Under Cover Pregnancy?

Many of you might wonder what is Ectopic pregnancy or what so called tubal pregnancy. It’s the pregnancy that takes place outside the uterine cavity,mainly in the fallopian tubes. This high risk complication of pregnancy is now reporting to occur in 2% of the pregnancies.

The most important thing about this pregnancy is to diagnose it AS SOON AS POSSIBLE to avoid life threatening complications for the mother. So how do we diagnose this kind of pregnancy?

Usually the first step in diagnosing Ectopic pregnancy is to do a pelvic examination for the mother that can detect tenderness in the area of the uterus and the fallopian tubes, less enlargement of the uterus than expected for pregnancy, or a mass felt in the pelvic area.

The very following thing to do is the pelvic ultrasound whether abdominal or transvaginal, but we prefer transvaginal ultrasound as it’s the most dependable way to show where a pregnancy is. A pregnancy in the uterus is visible 6weeks after the last menstrual period.  An Ectopic pregnancy is likely if there are no signs of an embryo in the uterus but hCG levels are elevated.

Later on , two or more blood tests of the pregnancy hormone hCG levels are taken 48 hours apart. During the early weeks of a normal pregnancy hCG levels double every 2 days, so low or slowly increasing levels of hCG in the blood suggests an early abnormal pregnancy, AKA Ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage.

Sometimes a surgical procedure using laparoscopy is used to look for and Ectopic pregnancy. An ectopic pregnancy after 5 weeks can usually be diagnosed and treated with a laparoscope, but laparoscopy is not often used to diagnose very early ectopic pregnancy because Ultrasound and blood pregnancy tests are very accurate.

After the diagnosis and treatment has been achieved, the hCG blood levels are tested several times as a part of the follow_up.  Usually we will be looking for a drop in the hCG levels which is a sign that the pregnancy is ending. In some cases hCG testing continues for weeks to months until hCG levels drop to Zero.

So I recommend all pregnant ladies to keep up with their prenatal visits to detect any abnormality in their pregnancies such as ECTOPIC pregnancy.