Hi,
Had a patient present a few weeks ago who reported she had not had a period this month. On questioning she was adamant she couldn't be pregnant as hadn't had sex recently, but agreed to do a pregnancy test for me. Unsurprisingly this test was positive. This left her in a difficult situation - she wanted to complete her education and her religion advised her against abortion, but she really didn't want to complete the pregnancy. After talking through the options I gave her referral details for the midwives and the abortion clinic, so she could choose which option she wanted to refer herself to after discussing with her family.
Today she came back, even more upset. She had decided that she didn't want to continue with the pregnancy and had attended the abortion clinic. As part of their work up they performed an ultrasound scan which revealed a 7 month old foetus (thank god for the scan!!)! This effectively took the choice as to what to do with the pregnancy away from the girl as this is far too old to consider abortion. We talked for a long time, and it turned out that she hadn't actually had periods for all this time, and had had unprotected sexual intercourse while on holiday in Europe at about the correct time. Eventually she came to terms with the situation.
3 main points from this:
1) This apparent virgin pregnancy was sadly not what it seemed
2) Some poor European man has a child he will never know about
3) Always examine the abdomen! If I had examined her I would have felt the baby!
As the streets might have said "You're pregnant but my gosh you don't know it" - and evidently neither did I! [Apologies for linking to terrible piece of music]
Had a patient present a few weeks ago who reported she had not had a period this month. On questioning she was adamant she couldn't be pregnant as hadn't had sex recently, but agreed to do a pregnancy test for me. Unsurprisingly this test was positive. This left her in a difficult situation - she wanted to complete her education and her religion advised her against abortion, but she really didn't want to complete the pregnancy. After talking through the options I gave her referral details for the midwives and the abortion clinic, so she could choose which option she wanted to refer herself to after discussing with her family.
Today she came back, even more upset. She had decided that she didn't want to continue with the pregnancy and had attended the abortion clinic. As part of their work up they performed an ultrasound scan which revealed a 7 month old foetus (thank god for the scan!!)! This effectively took the choice as to what to do with the pregnancy away from the girl as this is far too old to consider abortion. We talked for a long time, and it turned out that she hadn't actually had periods for all this time, and had had unprotected sexual intercourse while on holiday in Europe at about the correct time. Eventually she came to terms with the situation.
3 main points from this:
1) This apparent virgin pregnancy was sadly not what it seemed
2) Some poor European man has a child he will never know about
3) Always examine the abdomen! If I had examined her I would have felt the baby!
As the streets might have said "You're pregnant but my gosh you don't know it" - and evidently neither did I! [Apologies for linking to terrible piece of music]
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What a tricky situation. It's sad the man will never know his child.
ReplyDeleteWas there a reason why you didn't examine her?