Early pregnancy complications can be miscarriages, ectopic pregnancy, or molar pregnancy.

Miscarriages are common, as 1in 5 pregnancy has a risk of miscarriage. Due to ultrasound scans and early investigations, miscarriages are diagnosed earlier.

A woman realised that she is pregnant when she misses her period. At this time- pregnancy is generally very early around 4-5 weeks. 

Fertilization happens 2 weeks before her expected date of menses but for pregnancy calculation we calculate last menstrual period as duration of the pregnancy. Implantation generally happens on day 5 after fertilization. This is important to understand gestational age calculations.

Your first appointment

Bring the following to your first visit:

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• Your partner, family member or friend are welcome to attend.

Beta hCG starts going up after implantation. If the pregnancy is correctly placed in the uterus bHCG generally doubles every 48 hours.

By 5 weeks we can see a small sac in the uterus and by 7 weeks within the sac a very small fetus (embryo) can be seen on ultrasound scan. Scan is generally performed trans- vaginally.

Fetal heart can also be seen beating around 6-7 weeks of gestation.

Pain and bleeding can be very common in early pregnancy, but it can also be a symptom of miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy.

It is important to see your doctor in case of unusual pain or bleeding.

Your doctor will carry out some investigations to know more about your early pregnancy.

Diagnosis of early pregnancy problem may take 2 or 3 visits to doctor or early pregnancy clinic. You need to be patient to wait and see what’s happening with the pregnancy however in case of severe pain or bleeding you must immediately attend emergency department as this can be dangerous.

Miscarriages can be managed by wait and see – which is called expectant management or medical management- where doctors will give you a tablet to take which causes uterine contraction and aid with spontaneous miscarriage at home or third way is surgical treatment with D&C. For D&C you have to attend the day surgery and it involves general anaesthesia.

Ectopic pregnancy can be life threatening as massive bleeding can happen inside your abdomen from ruptured ectopic pregnancy. It is usually managed by removing your tube by laparoscopic surgery. In some cases of stable, small ectopic pregnancies can be managed carefully by expectant management or my medical management bya drug called Methotrexate. Your doctor will give you more information about this.