The Problem of Early Detection Pregnancy Tests

August 8, 2008 at 11:05 am · Filed under About Deanna's Book, Early Pregnancy Detection, Miscarriage

During research for my book Facing Miscarriage, I stumbled across an article in the British news source, The Telegraph, talking about a “panic” that spread across the UK when early detection home pregnant tests first became available a few years ago.

I didn’t find any similar articles in US papers, but it’s easy to see why the new home pregnancy tests could cause a flurry of concern.

Old-style tests, manufactured prior to 2004, typically looked for a pregnancy hormone level of 50-100 mIU/ml and were not effective until the day a woman missed her period, on average, about 14 days post fertilization. This is when the baby is well implanted and the miscarriage rate is expected to be between 8 and 20 percent.

The new tests, however, detect the hormone at 20 mIU/ml. This is within a day or two of implantation, more like 9-10 days after fertilization.

Since the advent of early sonography, we’ve known that a huge number of fertilized eggs either never implant at all, or attempt implantation and fail. This number varies depending on who you ask, but is always frighteningly high — between 50 and 75 percent.

For many moms, working so hard to achieve pregnancy and the family of their dreams, this is a terrible and sad loss. The emotional pain in getting their period after seeing a positive pregnancy test is often strong and frightening.

These early losses, however, almost never indicate a problem that needs treatment. The fusing of the egg and sperm’s genetic material is tricky and often goes awry, either misaligning or dividing improperly in early cell growth. When the egg with chromosomal errors bumps against the uterus, the body will start the implantation process. This sets off the manufacture of pregnancy hormone, but often, the lining rejects the egg. In this case, the woman’s body will register a fleeting rise in pregnancy hormone even though the baby could not implant and grow. The new tests are so sensitive as to catch the temporary rise.

This early chromosomal rejection has no bearing on the health of the mother or her ability to carry children to term. The rush of hospital visits by distressed moms causes extra upset and frustration. They often find they are simply turned away. Others might be subjected to invasive and unnecessary tests. The problem amplifies — moms want their babies to be recognized from conception, and health care providers want to maintain a simplicity in diagnosis and treatment of clinically recognized pregnancy and miscarriage.

As I write what I hope to be the newest book about miscarriage and how to get through it, I will address the issue of the new definition of miscarriage. Do we adjust our statistics and scare women with the real figure — that over half of their pregnancies will be lost before week 5? And how do we decide when a woman actually needs intervention for recurring miscarriages? Do early losses simply “not count” anymore? I do wish sites like this one that advocate super-early testing also include a reminder of how common an early loss can be.

Perhaps we will rewrite the rules based on our early detection of pregnancies, creating a hierarchy of risk based on gestational age. But the rules will be for treatment and clinical relevance only. Our babies are our babies, whether at 16 cells or fully formed in our waiting arms.

Comments (5)

Eliza & Her Angel

June 2, 2008 at 10:53 am · Filed under Deanna's Story, Miscarriage, Twins

Many of you know my younger daughter Elizabeth was once part of a set of twins. I lost one of the babies when my water broke on that sac at 10 weeks. It was a harrowing experience as I was on an airplane, only two hours into a 12-hour flight between Switzerland and the US.

After a tense week, we finally saw Elizabeth’s heart beat, and the other sac collapsed and got out of the way. I had no further complications to her pregnancy, other than the usual stuck position and required c-section.

A few days ago, after taking Elizabeth’s hair out of braids, she said, “I have angel hair!” So we took her picture holding a baby doll, which I later replaced with an image of herself as a baby.

There isn’t a sweeter guardian angel than Emma Hope, Elizabeth’s twin, and no better way to portray them than with a sister who once shared her womb.

This image is available at RedBubble for a keepsake card or a little poster for baby’s room, if you also have a guardian angel who will watch over you or your other children. It includes the very common phrase you will see repeatedly on grief sites, miscarriage tickers, and signatures, “Some people dream of angels…I held one in my arms.”

Comments (2)

Sympathy Cards

March 13, 2008 at 6:10 pm · Filed under Grief, Miscarriage

Ever since all the e-card nightmares where scammers were sending emails saying “You have a greeting card from a friend” but it was really just phishing for your private information, I’ve wondered about the e-cards I’ve offered for a long time to give women who have had a miscarriage, and if anyone uses them any more.

Recently I discovered Red Bubble, which is an online art company where artists can offer their works to the public. I love it there. It’s such a neat community.

But mainly I wanted to create greeting cards for people to give someone who has suffered a loss, one especially that would be a keepsake, since we all know how few of those we get. So I finally did. And it’s up. I put it on Red Bubble because they are the least espensive as well. I could offer it to pretty close to what you could buy a nice card in a store for.

Anyway, hopefully it will be one more thing that raises awareness, and helps.

You can see it here.

Deanna’s Card

Comments (1)

Site hacking

January 25, 2008 at 11:44 am · Filed under Miscarriage

I’m sorry that my site has been experiencing some troubles. I have a hacker going after me and deleting it daily. I’m working on closing up any holes.

I’ve very sorry for this. I’m doing the best I can!

Comments (1)

Our Candlelighting

October 15, 2007 at 9:50 pm · Filed under Deanna's Story, Grief, Miscarriage, Remembrance Day

I’m so pleased that so many new Mamas learned about Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day and participated. Some went well above and beyond to notify local news media and get the word out in earnest.

Tomorrow I’ll put the site back in its usual configuration, which is to place Frequently Asked Questions right here front and first-read, but for one more day we’ll think about what this candle lighting means and the day we got to stop and revisit our loss, spend time with our babies, and let the grief flow.

Today I got to tell Emily and Elizabeth about the babies who died in Mama’s tummy, and Emily started to understand. (Elizabeth still thought lighting the floating candles and setting them out in Town Lake was “great fun.”)

I’ll leave you with the image of us here in Austin, lighting our candles on this special day for our babies.

Comments (3)