IS IT PREGNANCY OR MENSTRUATION?
The first symptoms of pregnancy may be unspecific, quite resembling pre-menstrual symptoms. It is possible, even, that the pregnant woman in the first days of Pregnancy present vaginal bleeding, believing that she has menstruated.
It is not uncommon to find cases of women who only discover they are pregnant after 3 or 4 months of pregnancy, simply because they confused the early symptoms of pregnancy and small vaginal bleeding with pre-menstrual symptoms and with Menstruation itself.
In this article we will try to show the differences between the symptoms of pregnancy and menstruation. To facilitate reading, we will write the text in the form of questions and answers.
IS IT POSSIBLE TO MENSTRUATE DURING PREGNANCY?
No, the pregnant woman may present with vaginal bleeding during pregnancy, but technically she does not menstruate.
WHY THE BLEEDING OF PREGNANCY CAN NOT BE CONSIDERED MENSTRUATION?
During the menstrual cycle, cells in the wall of the uterus (called the endometrium) proliferate, making the uterus thicker and highly vascularized. The endometrium expands to become a favorable place to receive a fertilized egg and start a pregnancy. If the woman ovulates and this ovule is not fertilized, the stimulus for the expansion and maintenance of this thick uterine wall disappears, causing all this tissue that grew during the first half of the menstrual cycle to stop receiving blood supplies and end up To be removed.
Menstruation, therefore, is not exactly a loss of blood, but it is the removal of uterine tissue along with blood vessels and clots.
During pregnancy, the wall of the uterus is not removed; otherwise, the fetus would be taken together, characterizing an abortion. Then, any bleeding that occurs in pregnancy can not be considered menstruation.
WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF BLEEDING IN EARLY PREGNANCY THAT CAN BE CONFUSED WITH MENSTRUATION?
Between 20 to 40% of pregnant women have at least one episode of vaginal bleeding during the first trimester of pregnancy. The causes are several, including implantation of the egg (fertilized ovum) in the uterus, hormonal variations, injuries or wounds in the vulva, vagina or uterus, abortion, threatened abortion, ectopic pregnancy , etc.
The main clue is an alteration of the habitual characteristics and the time of menstrual bleeding. If you are of childbearing age, recently had sexual intercourse without proper contraception protection (be it a condom, pill or any other contraceptive method) and you had vaginal bleeding different from the one you are used to seeing, this can be a sign of pregnancy.
The bleeding of pregnancy is usually bright red, except in situations such as ectopic pregnancy and complete abortion, when the bleeding is more obscured. In any case, the characteristics of blood are usually very different from menstruation.
BEING THAT WAY, IS IT EASY TO DISTINGUISH A MENSTRUATION FROM A VAGINAL BLEEDING DURING PREGNANCY?
Not always, especially if the woman still does not know she is pregnant. The characteristics of menstrual bleeding are different from women to women. There are those that have a small, short-term menstrual flow, which may resemble bleeding that occurs during the early phase of pregnancy. Therefore, it is not uncommon to find cases of women who bleed during the first months of pregnancy and believe they are menstruating normally.
Three aspects must be considered at the moment of distinguishing vaginal bleeding:
1. Does the bleeding occur on the expected date of menstruation?
2. Does the bleeding have the same duration and the usual volume of menstruation?
3. Are the characteristics of the blood similar to menstruation?
If you have answered YES to at least 2 of the 3 questions, the possibility of being simply menstruation is very large.
WHAT ARE THE OTHER SYMPTOMS OF PREGNANCY THAT RESEMBLE THE SYMPTOMS OF MENSTRUATION?
Some pre-menstrual symptoms, such as colic, fluid retention, breast enlargement, mood variation and others, can occur both in an initial pregnancy and in the pre-menstrual period. The clue here is the same used to distinguish the bleeds: compare the characteristics of the symptoms. Usually, the symptoms of pregnancy may be similar, but they are not the same as those of the pre-menstrual period.
We, doctors, get used to joking that one of the symptoms of pregnancy is the sixth feminine sense to say to the woman that she may be pregnant. This is an important clue. When the woman thinks that she does something different in her menstrual pattern or in the pre-menstrual symptoms, unless she has not had sexual intercourse recently, the ideal is always to do a pregnancy test to remove the doubt, mainly if the menstruation she is late.
IS DELAY IN MENSTRUATION ALWAYS A SIGN OF PREGNANCY?
Of course not. If, on the one hand, all pregnancy necessarily causes menstrual delay , the opposite is not true. Not every menstrual delay is synonymous with gestation in progress. There are several causes for menstrual delay, including emotional stress. Therefore, if your period lasted a few days, there may be other explanations than pregnancy. However, every sexually active woman with a menstrual delay greater than one ruled out a pregnancy.
Trying to know only the symptoms if you are pregnant or not is usually very inefficient. It becomes a guessing game. The pregnancy diagnosis is made with exams and not with a glass sphere.
The correct thing to do is: if your menstruation delayed and you suspect that you may be pregnant (even if the suspicion is very slight), take the pregnancy test. With at least a week of menstrual delay, most tests have a very high success rate.
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