A ruptured appendix can lead to life-threatening infections, but even so, many appendicitis in pregnant women are missed.
– What I was a part of, I don’t want anyone else to have to go through, says Sofia Bjelke, who was sent home despite acute appendicitis when she was heavily pregnant.
At the beginning of July, heavily pregnant Sofia Bjelke gets pain in the right side of her stomach, and goes to the hospital with her mother.
– My first thought was “is there something wrong with the baby? Is it something that has happened?’, she says.
Once in labor, they learn that it has nothing to do with the fetus, but are referred to the surgical emergency room as the doctor suspects that she could have appendicitis.
But after a short examination based on a standard form, with some samples and a number of questions about, among other things, pain and vomiting, that doctor also gives a reassuring message, and sends her home with the request to wait a week and see what happens.
Recurring problems
But already after a weekend in severe pain, they go back and, after a more thorough examination, find out that it is probably appendicitis and that she needs to be operated on.
– And as I understood it, they said that it was so inflamed and ugly that it would have burst if they had waited a little longer, says Sofia’s mother Marita Axelsson.
A ruptured appendix can lead to both infections and blood poisoning, which can not least be dangerous for pregnant women. But despite that, Sofia is far from alone in having been sent home as a pregnant woman with an inflamed appendix.
“Won’t let time pass”
According to Elin Moltubak, who is a senior physician in Jönköping and who has researched the area as a PhD student at Linköping University, this is because the symptoms of appendicitis can resemble pregnancy itself.
And she therefore believes that doctors should carry out more comprehensive examinations of pregnant women in particular, by collaborating between departments and operating to a greater extent, and not just rely on standard forms.
– With pregnant women, it is a difficulty that abdominal pain is a common symptom, and you can have nausea of pregnancy with a lot of vomiting and stomach pain, says Moltubak and continues:
– But the important thing is that if the pregnant woman is ill and you have a strong suspicion that it is appendicitis, you should not let time pass but, just like with non-pregnant women, offer the woman an operation.