Last week, there were reports around the world of an extreme case of a woman being surprised by her own full-term pregnancy: a Bangladeshi woman gave birth to a healthy and expected baby boy, only to learn nearly a month later that she was carrying twins in a second uterus (they were also born healthy, 26 days after her first child). The physical circumstances in that case, and the fact that the woman knew she was pregnant with one child – but not three – clearly make it highly unusual. But the phenomenon of a woman carrying a baby to term without knowing she is pregnant is more common than one might think; as Dollan found out after giving birth to Amelia, this is known as “cryptic pregnancy”. A 2002 paper published in the British Medical Journal estimated that it occurs in about one in every 2,500 pregnancies, suggesting about 320 cases in the UK every year.
Fuente del contexto
The Guardian
Tipo de fuente
Periódico
Autor
Elle Hunt
Título de la fuente
Cryptic pregnancies: ‘I didn’t know I was having a baby until I saw its head’