pregnant after hyster.. in my local news thought i'd share

this is a story that just happened here is pittsburgh its really odd so i thought i would share it.. it surprised me!

Woman Pregnant After Hysterectomy

Oct 16, 2003 6:02 pm US/Eastern
Pittsburgh (KDKA) Two local doctors have documented something that should be medically impossible: a woman, pregnant, even though she has no womb. It's so rare and unusual, this local case is making headlines in a national medical journal.

Weeks after she had a hysterectomy, a 31-year old local woman went to doctors at Magee Women's Hospital, complaining of abdominal pain.

What the doctors discovered was astounding.

Doctors Harold Wiesenfeld and Richard Guido at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine discovered that the woman was 12-weeks pregnant -- even though she had already had a hysterectomy to correct a bleeding problem.

A "CT" scan of the woman's abdomen showed a tiny fetus, just over three inches, implanted on a side wall of her pelvis and an ovary.

They have documented the case in an article in today's New England Journal of Medicine.

Doctors still aren't sure how this happened.
"The theory -- and I emphasize theory -- of how this might of happen, is that the pregnancy probably conceived prior to the hysterectomy."
-- Dr. Eugene Scioscia, Allegheny General Hospital
In other words, if conception had occurred sometime prior to the woman's surgery when doctors removed her uterus, the microscopic embryo could have become dislodged and left behind.

Another theory is that the embryo had already implanted in the woman's abdomen before the surgery.

Abdominal pregnancies are extremely rare and occur in less that 1 in 10,000 live births.

Any pregnancy that occurs outside the womb is called an ectopic pregnancy and can be life threatening to the mother.

The placenta -- the mass of blood vessels that feed a developing baby -- normally gets its blood supply from a woman's uterus. Without a uterus, the placenta would siphon off blood from other vital organs in her abdomen, leading to serious health consequences.

Allowing the pregnancy to go to term could be deadly for both mother and child.
"It can be life threatening to the mother in an effort to deliver this baby. When the babies are born, it's not the baby per se, but the placenta. In trying to remove the placenta, you get severe hemorrhage -- and the mother's going to bleed to death from it."
-- Dr. Eugene Scioscia, AGH
Because of the risk to the mother, doctors surgically removed the fetus.

Again, this type of ectopic pregnancy is extremely rare -- only 30 documented cases worldwide.

How scary is that!Kay

i know i can't even imagine going through that. I have said prayers for her....

After a hys. you never expect to go through anything like that. She had been through enough without that. Kay

i agree, i think i would also be sooooo angry at docs for not knowing if i was pregnant already before the hysterectomy, i would think that they would have performed tests to be sure... it never should have happened. they should have known..

That one is so hard to believe.....that the doctors missed it...with all the tests that are performed prior to surgery!!! I guess, even though this is rare, there should be a routine HCG level drawn!!! I feel soooooo sorry for that family!! The emotional aspect of not ever having children either ever, or again, is so hard, even when you know (as I did) that your family is complete...then to find out there is a pregnancy that most likely will have to be or spontaneously be terminated! WOW!!!!! We all need to say a er for that family!!!!! I see lawsuit in the unspoken of all this!!!!!!

Ronda

Well, it is theoretically possible that they did do a pregnancy test at her pre-op and it came back negative, and then she had sex between the pre op and the surgery, so that when they removed the uterus, the fertilized egg was still hanging out in her fallopian tube (she kept her ovaries and tubes). The likelihood of it implanting in the abdomen would be extremely low but it is possible.

Here is a link to a little more complete description, by a reporter from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

http://www.insidevc.com/vcs/lifestyl...354524,00.html

That poor woman , I hope she finds us.


-Linda

I still feel so sad for her, that must have been a really horrible thing to find out and go through, especially after having a hysterectomy.. i cant imagine the emotional impact this is having on her.
i know how bad i felt when the nurses walked me to the nursery after surgery to look at the babies without asking me first if i would mind going there...it was kinda like a smack in the face to me...

...... that had to be a million times worse!

Just wondering why they took you to the nursery? Kay

there were 4 of us there that had hysters and we were placed in in the labor and delivery ward after surgery for the next 2 days. they took us all there when we had to walk, it was right down the hall. my guess is the nurses didnt really think about the impact it would have on us. I personally thought it was cruel and so did my neighbor in the next room, we visited for a while when we both had been walked down there and talked about it. i felt really guilty and bad because at least i already have two small children (though would have loved more) but she wasnt able to have any and it really bothered her that i had the same surgery so young as well. ( i was 25, 26 now just had bday 16th).
it seemed to both of us that is was thoughtlessness on the nurses part to not walk us in the opposite direction.