Ectopic pregnancy how do i know

Talk to your doctor about this. Read more about treating an ectopic pregnancy. Losing a pregnancy can be devastating, and many women feel the same sense of grief as if they had lost a family member or partner. It's not uncommon for these feelings to last several months, although they usually improve with time.

Make sure you give yourself and your partner time to grieve. If you or your partner are struggling to come to terms with your loss, you may benefit from professional support or counselling. Speak to your GP about this. Read more about dealing with loss and find bereavement support services in your area. You may want to try for another baby when you and your partner feel physically and emotionally ready.

You'll probably be advised to wait until you've had at least 2 periods after treatment before trying again to allow yourself to recover. If you were treated with methotrexate, it's usually recommended that you wait at least 3 months because the medicine could harm your baby if you become pregnant during this time.

Most women who have had an ectopic pregnancy will be able to get pregnant again, even if they've had a fallopian tube removed. Occasionally, it may be necessary to use fertility treatment such as IVF.

If you do become pregnant again, it's a good idea to let your GP know as soon as possible so early scans can be carried out to check everything is OK. In many cases, it's not clear why a woman has an ectopic pregnancy.

Sometimes it happens when there's a problem with the fallopian tubes, such as them being narrow or blocked. You can't always prevent an ectopic pregnancy, but you can reduce your risk by using a condom when not trying for a baby to protect yourself against STIs, and by stopping smoking if you smoke.

If you think you are pregnant and you have these symptoms, see your doctor right away. A urine test can show if you are pregnant. To find out if you have an ectopic pregnancy, your doctor will likely do:. The most common treatments are medicine and surgery. In most cases, a doctor will treat an ectopic pregnancy right away to prevent harm to the woman. Medicine can be used if the pregnancy is found early, before the tube is damaged. In most cases, one or more shots of a medicine called methotrexate will end the pregnancy.

Taking the shot lets you avoid surgery, but it can cause side effects. You will need to see your doctor for follow-up blood tests to make sure the shot worked. For a pregnancy that has gone beyond the first few weeks, surgery is safer and more likely to work than medicine. If possible, the surgery will be laparoscopy say "lap-uh-ROSS-kuh-pee". This type of surgery is done through one or more small cuts incisions in your belly.

If you need emergency surgery, you may have a larger incision. Losing a pregnancy is always hard, no matter how early it happened. Take time to grieve your loss, and get the support you need to make it through this time. You could be at risk for depression after an ectopic pregnancy.

If you have symptoms of depression that last for more than a couple of weeks, be sure to tell your doctor so you can get the help you need. It is common to worry about your fertility after an ectopic pregnancy.

Having an ectopic pregnancy does not mean that you can't have a normal pregnancy in the future. But it does mean that:. If you get pregnant again, be sure your doctor knows that you had an ectopic pregnancy before. Regular testing in the first weeks of pregnancy can find a problem early or let you know that the pregnancy is normal. Fallopian tube damage is a common cause of ectopic pregnancy. A fertilized egg can become caught in the damaged area of a tube and begin to grow there. Some ectopic pregnancies occur without any known cause.

Common causes of fallopian tube damage that may lead to an ectopic pregnancy include:. Although pregnancy is rare after a tubal ligation or with an intrauterine device IUD , those pregnancies that do develop may have an increased chance of being ectopic. An early ectopic pregnancy often feels like a normal pregnancy. A woman with an ectopic pregnancy may experience common signs of early pregnancy, such as:.

First signs of an ectopic pregnancy may include:. As an ectopic pregnancy progresses, though, other symptoms may develop, including:. Symptoms of miscarriage often are similar to symptoms experienced in early ectopic pregnancy. For more information, see the topic Miscarriage.

Normally, at the beginning of a pregnancy, the fertilized egg travels from the fallopian tube to the uterus , where it implants and grows. But in a small number of diagnosed pregnancies, the fertilized egg attaches to an area outside of the uterus, which results in an ectopic pregnancy also known as a tubal pregnancy or an extrauterine pregnancy. An ectopic pregnancy cannot support the life of a fetus for very long.

But an ectopic pregnancy can grow large enough to rupture the area it occupies, cause heavy bleeding, and endanger the mother.

A woman with signs or symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy requires immediate medical care. An ectopic pregnancy can develop in different locations.

In most ectopic pregnancies, the fertilized egg has implanted in a fallopian tube. Ectopic pregnancy can damage the fallopian tube, which can make it difficult to become pregnant in the future. Ectopic pregnancies are usually detected early enough to prevent deadly complications such as severe bleeding.

A ruptured ectopic pregnancy requires emergency surgery to prevent heavy bleeding into the abdomen. The affected tube is partially or fully removed.

For more information, see Surgery. Things that can increase your risk of having an ectopic pregnancy include:. Medical treatments and procedures that can increase your risk of having an ectopic pregnancy include:. Ectopic pregnancy has been linked to the use of medicine used to make the ovary release multiple eggs superovulation. Experts do not yet know whether this is because many women using it already have fallopian tube damage or because of the medicine itself.

If you become pregnant and are at high risk for ectopic pregnancy , you will be closely watched. Doctors do not always agree about which risk factors are serious enough to watch closely. But research suggests that risk is serious enough if you have had a tubal surgery or an ectopic pregnancy before, had DES exposure before birth, have known fallopian tube problems, or have a pregnancy with an intrauterine device IUD in place.

If you are pregnant, be alert to the symptoms that may mean you have an ectopic pregnancy, especially if you are at risk. If you have symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy or you are being treated for an ectopic pregnancy, avoid strenuous activity until your symptoms have been evaluated by a doctor. Call or other emergency services immediately if:. Call your doctor now or seek immediate medical care if:.

Your family doctor , general practitioner , or an emergency medicine specialist can check you for an ectopic pregnancy. You may be referred to a specialist, such as a gynecologist. Most ectopic pregnancies can be detected using a pelvic examination, ultrasound, and blood tests. If you have symptoms of a possible ectopic pregnancy, you will have:. Sometimes a surgical procedure using laparoscopy is used to look for an ectopic pregnancy. An ectopic pregnancy after 5 weeks can usually be diagnosed and treated with a laparoscope.

But laparoscopy is not often used to diagnose a very early ectopic pregnancy, because ultrasound and blood pregnancy tests are very accurate. During the week after treatment for an ectopic pregnancy, your hCG human chorionic gonadotropin blood levels are tested several times. Your doctor will look for a drop in hCG levels, which is a sign that the pregnancy is ending hCG levels sometimes rise during the first few days of treatment, then drop.

In some cases, hCG testing continues for weeks to months until hCG levels drop to a low level. If you become pregnant and are at high risk for an ectopic pregnancy , you will be closely watched. A urine pregnancy test—including a home pregnancy test—can accurately diagnose a pregnancy but cannot detect whether it is an ectopic pregnancy.

If a urine pregnancy test confirms pregnancy and an ectopic pregnancy is suspected, further blood testing or ultrasound is needed to diagnose an ectopic pregnancy. In most cases, an ectopic pregnancy is treated right away to avoid rupture and severe blood loss.

The decision about which treatment to use depends on how early the pregnancy is detected and your overall condition. For an early ectopic pregnancy that is not causing bleeding, you may have a choice between using medicine or surgery to end the pregnancy. Using methotrexate to end an ectopic pregnancy spares you from an incision and general anesthesia. But it does cause side effects and can take several weeks of hormone blood-level testing to make sure that treatment has worked.

Methotrexate is most likely to work:. If you have an ectopic pregnancy that is causing severe symptoms, bleeding, or high hCG levels, surgery is usually needed. This is because medicine is less likely to work and a rupture becomes more likely as time passes. When possible, laparoscopic surgery that uses a small incision is done.

For a ruptured ectopic pregnancy , emergency surgery is needed. For an early ectopic pregnancy that appears to be naturally miscarrying aborting on its own, you may not need treatment. Your doctor will regularly test your blood to make sure that your pregnancy hormone hCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin levels are dropping. This is called expectant management. Ectopic pregnancies can be resistant to treatment. If your blood type is Rh-negative , Rh immunoglobulin may be used to protect any future pregnancies against Rh sensitization.

For more information, see the topic Rh Sensitization During Pregnancy. Surgery may be your only treatment option if you have internal bleeding. You cannot prevent ectopic pregnancy, but you can prevent serious complications with early diagnosis and treatment.

If you have one or more risk factors for ectopic pregnancy, you and your doctor can closely monitor your first weeks of a pregnancy.

If you smoke, quit to lower your risk of ectopic pregnancy. Women who smoke or who used to smoke have higher rates of ectopic pregnancy. Using safer sex practices, such as using a male condom or a female condom every time you have sex helps protect you from sexually transmitted infections STIs that can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease PID.

PID is a common cause of scar tissue in the fallopian tubes, which can cause ectopic pregnancy. If you are at risk for having an ectopic pregnancy and you think you may be pregnant, use a home pregnancy test. If it is positive, be sure to have a confirmation test done by a doctor, especially if you are concerned about having an ectopic pregnancy. If you are receiving methotrexate treatment to end an ectopic pregnancy, you may experience side effects from the medicine.

See these tips for managing methotrexate treatment to minimize these side effects. If you experience an ectopic pregnancy loss, no matter how early in a pregnancy, expect that you and your partner will need time to grieve.

It is also possible to develop depression from the hormonal changes after a pregnancy loss. Risk factors increase with any of the following:. If you have any of the above risk factors, talk to your doctor. You can work with your doctor or a fertility specialist to minimize the risks for future ectopic pregnancies. Nausea and breast soreness are common symptoms in both ectopic and uterine pregnancies. The following symptoms are more common in an ectopic pregnancy and can indicate a medical emergency:.

If you suspect you may have an ectopic pregnancy, see your doctor immediately. However, your doctor may still perform one to rule out other factors. Another step to diagnosis is a transvaginal ultrasound. This involves inserting a special wand-like instrument into your vagina so that your doctor can see if a gestational sac is in the uterus. Your doctor may also use a blood test to determine your levels of hCG and progesterone.

These are hormones that are present during pregnancy. The fallopian tube could rupture in extreme cases, causing severe internal bleeding. Your doctor will then perform an emergency surgery to provide immediate treatment.

Treatment options vary depending on the location of the ectopic pregnancy and its development. Your doctor may decide that immediate complications are unlikely. In this case, your doctor can prescribe several medications that could keep the ectopic mass from bursting. Methotrexate is a drug that stops the growth of rapidly dividing cells, such as the cells of the ectopic mass.

If you take this medication, your doctor will give it to you as an injection. You should also get regular blood tests to ensure that the drug is effective.

When effective, the medication will cause symptoms that are similar to that of a miscarriage. These include:. Further surgery is rarely required after this occurs. Many surgeons suggest removing the embryo and repairing any internal damage.

This procedure is called a laparotomy. Your doctor will insert a small camera through a small incision to make sure they can see their work. The surgeon then removes the embryo and repairs any damage to the fallopian tube. If the surgery is unsuccessful, the surgeon may repeat a laparotomy, this time through a larger incision. Your doctor will give you specific instructions regarding the care of your incisions after surgery.

The chief goals are to keep your incisions clean and dry while they heal.