An obese woman didn’t know she carried a baby to term:
“Usually you can tell if you’re pregnant, but with me, I couldn’t tell,” the 39-year-old Garden Grove resident said Thursday, pointing to her belly and explaining that, at about 420 pounds, she was so large that no one ““ including herself ““ could tell she had carried a baby to term.Branum says she never had morning sickness and did not feel the baby kick, at least not until after doctors told her what was inside her womb. “If he kicked, I didn’t feel him kicking,” she said.
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{ 7 comments }
Did she not notice or care that her period had stopped?
Anon,
if you RTFA, it is pointed out that she stopped having a regular period about 2 years ago, likely secondary to the obesity.
This isn’t as uncommon as you might think. I can think of 3 cases of much smaller women — and that doesn’t include the teens who are probably mostly lying to their parents. I actually had my hands on all these babies and I’ve only worked at 2 hospitals.
#1 – 25+ years ago, granted. 40-something woman, a little overweight, but not more than 50 lbs or so. Told by her physician that she had a fibroid. Though amenorrhea was due to her age. Boy was her husband ticked off. He got over it, by the time the baby was discharged, though.
#2 – about 18 years ago. Baby was IUGR. Mom was thin. She was also sure she couldn’t be pregnant because her husband had a vasectomy. He had a second one before the baby camehome.
#3 – college student, 70-80 lbs overweight. 9 lb baby. Maybe just scared, but absolutely denied knowing she was pregnant and presented to her primary care doc’s office with abdominal pain.
the teaching point is to always get the urine pregnancy test and do a vaginal exam for a woman with abdominal pain.
b
How the hell did she have sex in the first place??
I mean, just the physical mechanics of it…
This happened with a friend of mine – 40ish woman, very slim. Her periods were irregular because of early menopause, so she thought she couldn’t have children. She wasn’t planning on them, but at the same time had this “wouldn’t it be great if it just happened” attitude.
So she went to the doctor with an abdominal pain, and for some reason the doctor decided he wanted to do uterine biopsy. Not sure why he hadn’t ordered ultrasound instead even if he hadn’t though of pregnancy, but then I am not a doctor. When she refused (I don’t remember why she didn’t want it), the doctor got mad at her saying how he was 70% sure it was cancer. She got upset and left.
We were chatting, and jokingly I asked her if she could be pregnant. Some time later she had a miscarriage.
The funny thing is that had she went ahead and had this biopsy and then had a miscarriage, she’d most likely blame the doctor. Even though she wasn’t planning on getting pregnant, she was really upset about a miscarriage. So the doctor was lucky she refused a biopsy.
Women KNOW when they are pregnant! I have had three and each time I knew right away. Call it that Mom’s instinct if you will but the fact is a woman knows!
They may want to deny it or hope it will go away but they know!
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