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WWhile 22-year-old Klara Dollan was waking up at 4 am the day she was due to start her new job, she thought that her terrible stomach cramping was signaling that her period was "back in force" . She had taken the pill without a break for more than six months, but had stopped about two weeks ago. The waves of pain left her pale and trembling, but she did not think she could call the sick the first day. So she took paracetamol at her mother's request and grabbed the bus and the tube from the house they shared at Cricklewood. northwest of London in the city.
Hours later, Dollan was at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, cradling a newborn baby girl: perfectly healthy and completed. Dollan had given birth alone in the bathroom of her apartment after being sent home, sick of work; a neighbor had heard her screaming for work and had called an ambulance. When Dollan called her mother and told her to come to the maternity ward, the answer was, "But you were not pregnant this morning!"
Amelia, now three years old, was a "total surprise," says Dollan, to whom many have difficulty believing. How could she not have known that she was pregnant? But perhaps the most relevant question is this: why would she have thought it?
Dollan had broken up with her boyfriend (Amelia's father) five months before the birth of her daughter and she was used to not having her period. She had gained some weight, but it was chalked up until breaking. A mirror selfie that she took does not betray any trace of her pregnancy for seven and a half months. "There was nothing to show. I did not feel it. I had no symptoms, no envy, no nausea – nothing. I was not aware of my pregnancy.
In fact, the first time she thought she was pregnant could be at the time of delivery. At this point, it was clear that this was not a period. "My body just told me to repel the pain. Then I saw a head come out. What was she thinking? "Honestly, I can not tell you. I was in absolute shock. "
Last week, it was reported worldwide the extreme case of a woman surprised by her own term pregnancy: a Bangladeshi gave birth to a healthy baby and waited, to finally learn, almost a months later, she was carrying twins in a second uterus (they are also born healthy, 26 days after her first child). The physical circumstances in this case and the fact that the woman knew that she was pregnant with a child – but not three – clearly make this very unusual. But the phenomenon of a woman carrying a baby without knowing she is pregnant is more common than one might think; As Dollan discovered after giving birth to Amelia, we speak of "cryptic pregnancy". A 2002 article in the British Medical Journal estimated that it occurred in about one in 2,500 pregnancies, suggesting about 320 cases in the UK each year.
"This is not particularly unusual," says Helen Cheyne, a midwifery professor at Stirling University's Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedics Research Unit in Glasgow. "It's rare, but it's not uncommon." In midwifery, obstetrics and gynecology settings, she says, if you have not lived yourself A mysterious pregnancy makes it not uncommon to know someone – or to know someone who knows someone – who has it.
At the beginning of her career as a clinical midwife, in 1982 or 1983, she recalls nursing a woman from the Princess Royal Maternity Hospital's postnatal care service in Glasgow, who had not noticed that she was She was pregnant before delivery. She had already given birth – her children were then teenage girls – and she had irregular periods and weight gain until she was old enough. Cheyne remembers her and her husband in total shock. "I never forgot that. She was completely credible. "
And yet, she adds, it is "very, very difficult to get an idea". "The feeling of a baby moving in you – if you have children, it's very hard to imagine how you might not recognize that. Have a baby of 8 pounds inside you … "She laughs. She adds that this is not only possible for women with significant overweight, as is generally assumed.
Although research is scarce – as could be expected, given the fundamental element of surprise – Cheyne said that cryptic pregnancies have been recorded worldwide for centuries. In fact, this was more understandable when pregnancy diagnoses depended on indicators such as loss of menstruation and nausea. Cheyne explains using extremely accurate modern tests: "It's very easy to diagnose a pregnancy – if you plan to become pregnant."
But the phenomenon can not be explained because women simply do not feel or notice the signs of pregnancy, however variable they may be. "Many people who do not expect to be pregnant are, recognizes that they are," said Cheyne, adding that this is true even for women in war zones, refugees and other difficult situations where access to testing is impossible. or health care. "If the symptoms of pregnancy were generally nebulous and difficult to detect, [cryptic pregnancies] it would happen all the time – so I think it has to be something more specific to the symptoms experienced by these particular women. "
Cryptic pregnancy has been reported as a "psychological phenomenon," says Cheyne, but she does not believe it applies to all cases. "Pregnancy is obviously a physical thing, but becoming a mother is also social and psychological – maybe pregnancy is too."
Naturally, when cases make the headlines (a representative example: "A woman did not know that she was pregnant – until she gives birth in the toilet"), they tend to be greeted with disbelief, skepticism and lamentable interest, like soap opera series low-rent documentary series. Sonia's "surprise baby", aged 15, at the EastEnders show in 2000, deeply impressed a generation of young women, while the American TV series I did not know I was pregnant has been broadcast for four seasons. (In 2015, he was picked up for special episodes on women who did not have one, but two enigmatic pregnancies, entitled I still did not know I was pregnant.)
The fact that a woman can experience a physiological experience as transformative as pregnancy without being aware of it seems to trigger deep unbelief, especially among those who have had a pregnancy. Dollan says people have questioned her common sense, her connection to her own body, and even the veracity of her story. She found particularly critical mothers.
"When I told them that I had no cravings or morning sickness, that I had not had a painful delivery – that I had just had a pregnancy, if you will -, they are like, "How could you not know? And almost: "How could you live with yourself without knowing?", She said. "There is a huge stigma, not only to be a young pregnant woman, but a young woman not knowing that she is pregnant."
What about men's reaction? "I do not think they understand it at all. All the men I said were like "yes, cool" and seemed to have forgotten right away.
After publicly announcing her story on This Morning four and a half months after giving birth, Dollan said she was contacted by many women who had not talked about their own cryptic pregnancy by embarrassment. For her, proof of her cryptic pregnancy is self-evident. "All I can say to someone who thinks I was hiding, is: why would I do it?" Not only would I put my health at risk, I would also put the health of my child at risk. "
That Amelia was brought to term and that she was born healthy, without help, was a "miracle," says Dollan, since she worked 12 hours a day and 60 hours a day. week in the hospitality sector-catering throughout his pregnancy. "I had not lived the life of a pregnant woman in the past eight months. I was bar manager, for the sake of Christ. I carried crates of alcohol up the stairs until my pregnancy was eight months old. "
The risk is inherent to cryptic pregnancy, during pregnancy, but especially during childbirth. Women can start working without medical assistance, sometimes in dangerous situations or entirely alone. Tragic cases where the child was born dead or died shortly after birth resulted in prosecution by the mother, Cheyne explains, particularly historically. "In a less understanding society, a woman could be charged with infanticide. People would say, "You must know that you are pregnant – otherwise, how would that happen?"
Even a relatively simple birth of a healthy baby can be very traumatic. "Most parents have nine months to prepare," says Dollan. "I had two seconds – maybe a minute. Instantly, my life has changed forever. "
Dr. Sylvia Murphy Tighe, lecturer and course director at the Department of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Limerick, Ireland, explains that, unlike Dollan and the Bangladeshi mother, past traumas can be a factor influencing unrecognized pregnancies. For her doctorate, Tighe studied hidden pregnancy: women hide their babies from others and often, to a certain level, to themselves. Given this connection, she avoids the term "cryptic pregnancy" in favor of the broader "rejected pregnancy" which encompasses the possibility of both conscious and unconscious rejection (even though she considers that pregnancy is much more common).
The 30 women she interviewed revealed "fluctuating levels of awareness" of their pregnancies, says Tighe. Some told him, years after the fact, that they "knew absolutely" even though they said at the time that this was not the case. Others were assigned to a person – often a partner, a family member or a health professional – before refusing it to everyone, sometimes in response to that reaction.
She discovered that the main motivator was fear: these women were terrified, often for their own survival. There was also a close link between a hidden pregnancy and trauma such as child sexual abuse, sexual assault and domestic violence, applicable to 11 of 30 respondents.
Others said they felt further silenced by the social stigma of unplanned pregnancy, fearing retribution or loss of control over their lives. (Although not all of his case studies were Irish, Tighe explained that the country's cultural resistance to unplanned pregnancies was a factor.) As such, a hidden pregnancy could be "externally and internally mediated", Tighe explains. "They might become aware of" Could I be pregnant? "But they shut up because a pregnancy, in the circumstances of their present life, is a really major crisis."
Often, the impact of this has been fully revealed only over time and, in many cases, treatment. Tighe explained to his interlocutors, "Whether it was six or 30 years after the event, they were looking back and were ready to talk … It's like a negotiation process." At the time, they might feel that terror. One case study claimed that she had not known that she was pregnant before her third interview.
"We can avoid thoughts – we can move them away from our minds," says Tighe, especially if there are factors such as contraception or other medical explanations that can reinforce this denial. A case study, a nurse from rural Ireland, recalled "block thinking". "She said," If I thought I was feeling a movement, I thought I might have an ovarian cyst. "She did not want to go to recognize that she was pregnant."
According to Tighe, these desperate measures testify to the need for an empathetic response by health professionals to hidden pregnancy, taking into account the lasting impact of trauma on maternity approaches. Sensational reporting in the media did not help women feel they could make themselves known.
For women who have not suffered significant trauma but hidden their pregnancy, says Tighe, having a child was simply not part of their "life plan".
Dollan says having a baby with her ex-boyfriend, 22, was not part of her plan. But she is also unequivocal: she did not know that she was pregnant until childbirth. "If I did, I would have no qualms about telling my family. Obviously, I would have been nervous to tell them – but there would have been a party, you know?
She is also delighted with the joy that Amelia has brought to her and to her mother's life. "It's funny, she's so lively," she said, "because I did not feel her moving."
• In the United Kingdom, Samaritans can be contacted at 116 123. In Australia, the Lifeline emergency help service is available on 13 11 14. In the United States, the suicide prevention hotline is 1-800-273-8255 and the hotline for domestic violence is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). You can find other international hotlines at www.befrienders.org
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