Ectopic pregnancy happens when the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus instead of inside the uterus.
This is often life threatening if spotted late and left to grow outside the uterus which definitely damages organs around it leading to severe blood loss and in some cases lead to maternal death.
Causes and Prevention of Ectopic Pregnancy:
1. Do everything to prevent sexually transmitted infections which reduces the risk of pelvic inflammatory disease
2. A damaged tube due to past surgery can cause ectopic pregnancy
3. Hormonal Inbalance
Signs of Ectopic Pregnancy:
1. Dizziness
2. Pelvic pain usually on one side of the body
3. Vomitting
4. Neck and Shoulder pain
Prevention is usually a lifestyle change resolve. Just stay healthy and avoid sexually transmitted diseases.
The reason some women do not even notice they have ectopic pregnancy is that it also produces HCG so you will experience the same early pregnancy symptoms that those with normal pregnancy experience. They will even register as a positive pregnancy test.
So the woman assumes all is on point. Until the symptoms start and the doctors start to investigate mostly by performing an ultra sound to checkñ where the location of the baby.
Treatment
If it is identified early, it can be treated with certain medications prescribed by a certified medical doctor. If identified late, treatment mostly requires Laparoscopic surgery.
This kind of surgery requires the use of thin tubes and a video camera and requires small cuts to either remove the tissue or repair it. More precisely, there are two types of laparoscopic surgeries used by medical doctors to treat ectopic pregnancies.
Salpingostomy which requires removal of the pregnancy without the fallopian tube and Salpingectomy requires removal of the pregnancy and the affected fallopian tube if the tube is ruptured.
The removal of ectopic pregnancy by undergoing a laparoscopic surgery increases your chances of having another ectopic pregnancy. Although some are able to still have successful pregnancy after an ectopic surgery.
The risk of death from ectopic pregnancy is quite high depending on when it was discovered or treated by a doctor who is not very skilled in managing such high risk surgery so patients are adviced to investigate and research on the skills and success rate of surgeries performed by a particular doctor.
One of the concerns raised by patients who had their fallopian tubes removed due to an ectopic pregnancy is if the removed fallopian tube can grow back and the simple answer is No.
There is no way the fallopian tube can grow back since they were formed during the initial development of pregnancy. Once removed they are gone.
But all hope is not lost even if you have lost your fallopian tubes. It is better to be alive without them than to die due to an ectopic pregnancy.
You can opt for in vitro fertilization (IVF) to get pregnant which bypasses the fallopian tubes and has very high success rate. Even if you have both tubes saved after an ectopic pregnancy surgery, it is still better to get pregnant through IVF since as mentioned earlier your chances of having another ectopic pregnancy increases after you have had one.
The survival rate of babies left to develop in the fallopian tube will not live past the first trimester. Even the most advanced technology has not come up with a way to safely transfer an embryo from the fallopian tube to the uterus.
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