There are good pregnancies and bad pregnancies. We all know what the most common form of bad pregnancy is — miscarriage. However, there are pregnancies that are even worse than that — ectopic pregnancies. Ectopics are doubly sad because just as with miscarriages, you don’t end up with a baby. However, in addition to that, ectopics also put the mother’s life at risk. Most ectopics are in the Fallopian tube and can potentially grow so large as to rupture the tube, causing dangerous internal bleeding. 99.9% of ectopic pregnancies will either die on their own or be removed medically before they can develop. However, there is always that one in a million that grows to become a baby. Today, just such a case was reported in Australia
I try to visualize what would have happened had this occurred under my care. We would have detected a heartbeat in the ovary early on. Whenever, a heartbeat is detected in the tube or in the ovary, the risk of maternal death is so high, that instant intervention to remove the pregnancy is the clear choice. This woman was lucky that she survived. Furthermore, the baby was lucky that her mom didn’t have routine medical care initially, because then she would have surgery to remove the ectopic. So she actually wound up with a better outcome. Life is strange.
