Bleeding in Pregnancy

By: Bradley G. Goldberg, M.D.

When a woman experiences bleeding in pregnancy, whether or not something can be done to help the baby depends on how far along the pregnancy is.

After the mid-portion of your pregnancy, if you experience premature labor there are medications that can be given in order to attempt to stop the process. Although there still needs to be improvement in these modalities, these treatments are sometimes effective.

Unfortunately, in the early stages of pregnancy these medications are usually not effective. When a woman experiences problems in the early part of pregnancy, such as pain or bleeding this could be a sign of problems.

Potential diagnoses include ectopic (tubal) pregnancy, miscarriage, or threatened miscarriage. An ectopic pregnancy is a potentially dangerous situation as this can lead to life-threatening internal bleeding.

Threatened miscarriage means that a woman is experiencing symptoms such as pain and/or bleeding, however, the pregnancy itself is unaffected. In fact, up to 20% of women who continue a normal pregnancy to the point of delivery will have experienced these symptoms of threatened miscarriage at some point earlier in their pregnancies.

In early pregnancy it is not always possible to make a speedy diagnosis. It is often necessary to observe a patient over several visits, including repeating blood work until the diagnosis can be assured.

The problem is that even if a miscarriage is suspected, there is no effective treatment to change the course of this condition in the early part of pregnancy. Later in the pregnancy, as mentioned above, medications can be given to prevent premature delivery but no effective medication is available to change the course of an early miscarriage. Hopefully this will not always be the case.

 

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