GynoFiles

When you are pregnant every part of your body is dramatically effected by the physical changes that accommodate the developing baby. The uterus grows from 70 grams to 1000 grams, most women gain  at least a couple of stone, and your skin starts taking on pigments that may fade but never leave! We notice a our tastes changing, and our smell changing, and generally we ignore what seems minor. But what may seem minor, but often isn't in pregnancy, is the runny nose and altered hearing women report. The changes in the ear, nose and throat are primarily due to changes in the circulatory system, such as the extra fluid in our circulation and the extra fluid our heart pumps. We also have some presumed increased susceptibility to viral infections, as well as some pressure changes from the bulk pressure of the growing uterus. All of these can oddly lead to increased runny nose! This can range from the very minor changes such as an occasional sneeze or drips, ...

Thyroid disease is not as common as diabetes in pregnancy, but it is relatively common and can have far reaching effects. Thyroid hormone has to be produced in the right amounts, the levels can be too high or too low and produce complications for pregnancy. The complications can be for the mother: high blood pressure, or diabetes, or heart effects and there is a rare condition called thyroid storm. For the baby thyroid disease can lead to miscarriage, premature birth, small growth, stillbirth, or complications of the placenta. Fortunately, for most, treatment of thyroid disease produces a healthy outcome in pregnancy. We think that the trigger for many thyroid function problems in pregnancy include viral diseases, environmental factors such as diet and genetic predisposition; most women have an increase in thyroid binding globulin when pregnant and in fact the HCG from the placenta stimulates thyroid, so it's most likely some one will be too high rather than too low.  ...

After miscarriage many couples want to get pregnant again. About half of all the miscarriages are due to chromosome problems in that egg. These problems are not likely to persist. The next most common reason for a miscarriage is that the implantation spot was poor, but it might have only been poor in that one cycle. Other correctable, or non-recurring, reasons for miscarriage are smoking, extremely thin or being obese, consuming too much alcohol, having used medication that could cause a miscarriage or being in a prior accident. The question then becomes: how soon can a couple safely try for another pregnancy? After you miscarry you can ovulate as soon as 2 weeks. So the decision to contracept for a bit or to begin trying again if you were trying for pregnancy is an important one. The WHO has recommended waiting 6 months. Other organizations have focused on birth spacing mostly after full term births or after births in third world countries . The WHO information was based on on...

Aschheim and Zondek discovered in 1927 that the urine of a pregnant woman would stimulate ovary growth in a mouse injected with this urine. This became the basis of the first biological pregnancy tests. The mouse did not die from the urine, but unfortunately had to be sacrificed to determine the test outcome, thus the saying, “Did the mouse die?” was coined.

Enovid-E was the first pill approved for contraception in 1960. Pregnancy rates of the birth control pills then were higher than the rates we currently quote to women. But in fact, although those pills were dramatically stronger in hormonal dose, they were probably no more effective for pregnancy prevention than current pills. When Enovid-E, thought to be a 10 mg pill (newer calculations showed it was 9.85) came to the market in 1957 for the control of menstrual cycle bleeding it was a time during which the diagnosis of pregnancy, before fetal movement was not a simple matter. This was still in the time of 'Piss Prophets.' Doctors that could predict medical diagnoses from the interpretation of urine. The pregnancy test that had progressed to the point of sophistication was invested by Drs Selmar Aschheim and his young assistant is Bernhard Zondek. they had discovered that there was hormonal substance that could cause mice ovaries to swell. Although the original Aschheim-Zond...

EPs can pretty reliably be diagnosed by blood testing of HCG combined with ultrasound testing. Actually it’s easier to rule out than in. And some cases are just plain easier to diagnose. There are pregnancies that have such a high HCG with no visible ultrasound presence of pregnancy in the uterus the diagnosis is fairly clear. And there are other pregnancies in which the numbers do not climb at all with no pregnancy in the uterus. Both pretty clearly tubal pregnancies (for the most part). Then we have those that have a low enough hormone level we aren’t sure if it’s just a newly started pregnancy or one that has very abnormal hormone production because it’s not in the right place. For those we look at the “doubling time.” Most normal pregnancies will have their placental hormone HCG double in 48 hours. But some won’t and we used to say they should at least rise about 66%. But new data says that some healthy pregnancy can even have hormone levels that rise more slowly than that…only 53%...

When and what tests to have when symptoms are vague but annoyingly persistent is one of the bigger medical dilemmas women and their gynos face! As technology improved physicians literally sometimes forget that plain old blood tests can just be wrong. And some can just be confusing. Like a blood pregnancy test. In  The Female Patient there has been an article about patients who persistently have a positive blood pregnancy test, and no pregnancy that can be found! Tumors, poorly functioning kidneys that can't clear molecules, missed very subtle tubal pregnancies are often blamed. And sometimes, yes, hate to admit, but the test is just plain wrong. There are molecules that "cross" in terms of their structure and register positive. In other cases we are being compared to "normals", for instance some women do feel better if their thyroid is boosted in spite of the so called "normal" test. Remember one test is just one number at one point in time! A negati...