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The Sun
2 days ago
- Health
- The Sun
I partied HARD, had periods & got a negative pregnancy test after my first baby but was secretly expecting her sister
A PARTY girl admits she went out drinking and vaping while heavily pregnant - not realising she was carrying a baby until GIVING BIRTH. Zenia Mitchell claims she looked 'huge' when pregnant with her first daughter, now two, and she and her boyfriend had no plans of having a second. 7 7 7 The 27-year-old admits she was partying 'heavily' a couple of months before giving birth to her surprise second child, as it had been her birthday followed by her sister's. The phenomenon, known as a cryptic pregnancy, meant Zenia said she maintained her periods and didn't notice any differences. She even had a pregnancy test come back negative when she once missed her period. On March 26, the pharmacy technician felt a trickle of water run down her leg while making dinner for her daughter, but ignored it thinking it was nothing. But after it happened another four times, Zenia said her mum who drove her to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in the US. Doctors reportedly told Zenia she was 30 weeks pregnant and in active labour after performing an ultrasound and blood test. The 'shocked' mum said she cried after hearing she was pregnant and felt guilty for unknowingly drinking and partying, worried it would affect the baby's health. A few hours later, Zenia gave birth to her daughter, Skye Thompson, who was '100 per cent healthy', weighing 5lb 13oz. Zenia, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, said: "I went to make my daughter something to eat and when I got up, a little trickle of water came out of me. "At first I thought I had to go to the bathroom, maybe more than I anticipated. But when I got up it happened again, a little trickle of water. "I called my mum and said there's something going on, there's fluid coming out of me. She said the only way is if I was pregnant. "She drove me to hospital and they tested me for STDs and pregnancy. "The doctor came back and told me I was pregnant. I said 'who is pregnant?' I thought she was giving me someone else's information. 7 "We had to do a blood test and ultrasound to see how far I was and I thought I can't be that far along because I didn't look pregnant. Maybe a few weeks. "At that point I was quite scared. "They told me I was 30 weeks pregnant and my water had broken so I was in active labour. "They transferred me to the delivery room and told me I would have a baby by tonight or tomorrow. "I cried from the time they told me I was pregnant and while having the baby. 7 "I was living my life as normal, I was drinking, I was partying, my birthday and my sister's birthday had just passed. "I felt really bad because I was drinking all that time. Her overall health worried me, but at that point there was nothing I could do. "But she came out 100 per cent healthy, nothing wrong with her. "I didn't know but I was partying a lot at that time, two or three months before she was born, definitely partying a little hard during those months. "I was vaping but didn't smoke anything. What is a cryptic pregnancy? What is a "cryptic pregnancy"? By medical definition, a cryptic pregnancy is one that is failed to be detected by medical testing. There may be signs there, but essentially a cryptic pregnancy is one where these signs are not obvious to the woman, or she denies they are there. A pregnancy test may come back negative even after the woman has missed her period for a number of medical reasons. If she does get an ultrasound despite a negative pregnancy test, it's possible a pregnancy won't show up in the first trimester because of problems such as the way the uterus is shaped, or simply because the medic doesn't spend time looking for it if they don't believe it's there. Most people notice symptoms of pregnancy such as tender and swollen breasts, mood swings, fatigue, and nausea early on in their pregnancy. But this could be dismissed by the woman as being caused by something else, such as a condition or diet. There are also cases where someone become pregnant in their early teens before they understand the symptoms of pregnancy. Cryptic pregnancies aren't common, but they're not unheard of, either. Anecdotal evidence suggests that women might not be aware of their pregnancies in up 1 in 475 cases, according to a British Medical Journal report. Some women are more likely to have a cryptic pregnancy than others because they believe it is not possible for them to have a child. It includes those with PCOS, who may have been told it will be difficult for them to have a child, and women on birth control pills, because the woman thinks the pill will protect her entirely from conceiving. Women with low body fat may also fail to detect they are pregnant if their periods are irregular or absent as a result of being so slim. Babies born from a cryptic pregnancy tend to be underweight, and the lack of prenatal care may affect their development. But what about the bump? A women may have a smaller bump - one she and others around her deem insignificant - for a number of reasons. TikTok sensation NHS surgeon Dr Karan Rajan explained: "Most women have an anteverted uterus, [meaning] it's slightly tilted forwards. "But one in five have a backwards tilt towards the spine." The GP explained that for some women, their uterus may remain tiled backwards for the duration of their pregnancy. "This 'backwards growth' could hide any bump," he stated. Other factors that could result in an invisible pregnancy could be "previous surgery, endometriosis and other gynaecological conditions [that] could scar the utroseacral ligament". "These are basically biological anchors which keep the uterus fixed to the spine and inside the pelvic cavities," Dr Rajan explained. "If these are stiff because of scarring, these ligaments can literally hold the uterus back and stop it from protruding too far out." People who are taller also have more of a chance of not displaying a noticeable bump when they're expecting, the NHS surgeon went on. "If you're taller, you'll have a longer torso so there'll be more space for the uterus to develop upwards rather than just outwards," he said, possibly giving the appearance of a small bump. And if you have particularly "well developed" abs, this may make your uterus "develop closer to your core rather than protruding out". "I have a regular period, I was spotting and lightly bleeding that whole time except for one month, and that month that I didn't bleed I took a pregnancy test just to be sure and it came back negative. "I'm also on birth control. It was not a planned thing, I wasn't hoping for another kid, at least not for now." I felt really bad because I was drinking all that time. Her overall health worried me, but at that point there was nothing I could do Zenia Zenia said she felt 'extremely' tired the last few weeks before giving birth but put it down to working and being a mum. The mum-of-two claims she maintained her dress size and did not gain any weight during her pregnancy apart from being bloated after eating. PREGNANCY WARNING Zenia is now urging women to get checked for pregnancy even if pregnancy tests come back negative. Zenia said: "There were no signs, maybe during the last few weeks I was extremely tired, but I woke up at 6am, took care of my two-year-old, made dinner, so I thought maybe I'm just exhausted. "I didn't feel anything and only pushed for one minute. I needed her to get out because I was still in denial until I saw the head, I thought 'oh my God, you guys are being serious.' "I didn't gain any weight apart from the normal bloating you get when you eat. I was the same weight, I didn't feel any different. "If you are sexually active and miss a period, I would suggest getting a blood test because pregnancy tests can give you false negatives, blood tests are the most accurate. "I never expected for it to happen to me. Especially after having a normal pregnancy with my first child, and I was huge with her."
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Fewer deaths, new substances and evolving treatments in Philly's opioid epidemic − 4 essential reads
In Philadelphia, fatal overdoses are the No. 3 cause of death after heart disease and cancer. That's been the case each year since 2016, except in 2020 and 2021 when COVID-19 deaths outpaced overdose deaths. The vast majority of fatal overdoses in Philly involve the synthetic opioid fentanyl. Data on overdose deaths in Philly in 2024 is not yet available. However, new research shows that drug deaths are dropping in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Still, opioid overdose deaths in Philadelphia remain what public health researchers call a 'wicked problem.' These are complex, multifaceted challenges that are constantly changing and have no clear solution. The Conversation U.S. published several articles over the past year that sought to untangle various threads of this wicked problem in Philadelphia. Here are four essential reads. Philadelphia's 7% drop in fatal overdoses in 2023 is notable. Still, opioid use disorder claimed the lives of over 1,100 residents that year – more than three times as many lives as 10 years earlier. Ben Cocchiaro, assistant clinical professor of family medicine and community health at Drexel University, explains one likely reason why overdoses in Philly spiked in the first place: the unpredictable potency of the city's street fentanyl supply. 'Local drug-testing efforts found as much as a fiftyfold difference in potency between bags of fentanyl that appear identical,' Cocchiaro writes. 'It's like cracking a beer and not knowing whether drinking it will get you mildly buzzed or send you to the graveyard. Read more: Forensic testing has revealed that over 90% of street heroin and fentanyl samples in Philly now contain xylazine, an animal tranquilizer with no FDA-approved use in humans. Rachel McFadden is an emergency room nurse at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and also works at a walk-in clinic in North Philadelphia that serves people who use drugs. Before xylazine, she says, most of the wounds she saw were minor skin infections that she treated with antibiotics. But that changed in late 2019. "Participants at the wound care clinic started to come in with a different kind of wound. They were filled with black and yellow dead tissue and tunneled deep into the skin. They were not wounds from infection but rather from tissue death or necrosis,' McFadden writes. McFadden explains the protocol for treating these serious wounds, which involves removing the dead tissue, administering antimicrobials and antibiotics for the inflammation and infection, and keeping the wound moist and dressed. She says it's also important that people's other basic needs, including food, shelter and a place to shower, are met so they can properly heal. Read more: The combination of fentanyl and xylazine in Philly street opioids has made withdrawal symptoms far more excruciating than those experienced by heroin users in the past. That's according to Kory London, an emergency room doctor and associate professor of emergency medicine at Thomas Jefferson University. London says these withdrawal symptoms lead many patients who are addicted to opioids to discharge themselves from the hospital before their treatment is complete. 'Patients with opioid use disorder will often do whatever they can to stay out of the hospital due to fear of withdrawal,' he writes. 'Asking how withdrawal symptoms are managed, therefore, is often their first priority when hospitalized. We see this even when they have conditions that require complicated and time-sensitive treatments. Beginning in 2022, London and colleagues began experimenting with new approaches to treating "tranq' dope withdrawal in Philly. The new protocols reduced the likelihood of these patients leaving early by more than half – from 10% to just under 4%. Read more: Philadelpha's public health department has issued health alerts about xylazine and medetomidine becoming more prevalent in the city's street opioid supply. Researchers Karli Hochstatter and Fernando Montero at Columbia University are part of a team that tests fentanyl samples collected in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia each month. Those tests have turned up a new adulterant: an industrial chemical known as BTMPS that is used in making plastics. 'We first detected BTMPS in Philadelphia in June 2024. We found it in two of the eight samples – 25% – that we collected that month. By November 2024, 12 of 22 samples – or 55% – contained BTMPS,' Hochstatter and Montero write. 'What's more, the amount, or concentration, of this industrial chemical in the drug samples often exceeded the amount of fentanyl.' BTMPS has not been studied in humans, but rat studies reveal exposure – at far lower levels than what is found in the Philly fentanyl samples – can cause heart defects, serious eye damage and death. Read more: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation's archives. Read more of our stories about Philadelphia.
