Pregnancy is a very happy news and when it happens the parents become very excited to go through the journey. But there are many rare cases when one might feel they are pregnant but then they only find out that the symptoms are not caused by pregnancy but by something else.
The first response false negative or false pregnancy is medically known as pseudocyesis. It is a case where one thinks that they are expecting a baby but in reality there is no child in the womb.
Pregnancy is usually an exciting time for expectant parents. But pregnancy doesn’t always end with the anticipated baby. In rare cases, a woman (or even a man) believes she is pregnant, only to find out that her symptoms were caused not by pregnancy, but by something else entirely. Those who have pseudocyesis can have many symptoms that are similar to pregnancy and the major ones among them are backache, weight gain and nausea.
Now the question is what are the reasons behind false pregnancy? Any doctors have found out that there can be many physical and psychological reasons behind that. Though some specific reasons cannot be pin pointed but there are some factors that trigger this situation. It is also said that when a woman feels a very strong desire to become pregnant then this can happen. Now the desire can come as a result of repeated miscarriages, impending menopause, infertility, the desire to get married and some other things. The common symptoms that one faces because of this are enlarged breasts, swollen belly and sometimes some sensation of fetal movement. They mainly happen because of the sudden trigger of some hormones like prolactin and estrogen. These are some actual pregnancy symptoms.
Women with pseudocyesis have many of the same symptoms as those who are actually pregnant and these common symptoms are:
- Interruption of the menstrual period
- Enlarged and tender breasts, changes in the nipples, and sometimes milk production
- Swollen belly
- Feeling of fetal movements
- Weight gain
- Nausea and vomiting
These are the symptoms that can last may be for a week and sometimes it may last for several months and even a year. In fact, there are very rare cases of false pregnancy where the patient has felt labour pain and landed at the hospital for it.
To determine whether a woman is experiencing a false pregnancy, the doctor will mostly try to evaluate their symptoms. They go for a pelvic examination and an abdominal ultrasound. This can help the doctor to visualise if there is any actual foetus present in the womb or not.
If one is thinking that can a first response test be wrong then yes, it can always be. This is because the home pregnancy tests are not always accurate. If there is false pregnancy then there will be no traces of life inside the womb. Also the uterus will not appear to be enlarged as it happens in case of normal pregnancies.
