Pregnant without pregnancy symptoms: is it serious?

Is it normal not to have symptoms in early pregnancy?

“The early pregnancy symptoms are due to hormonal changes. There are more or less sensitive women depending on the level of these beta-hcg hormones and their balance, their physical and mental health”explains midwife Benoit Le Goëdec, midwife, also author of “soon daddy” (Ed. First). Moreover, in some, “pregnancy symptoms are going to be a way to make sure you’re pregnant before you feel the baby move, in the face of the fear of miscarriage”, he adds. In short, as long as they have symptoms, future mothers feel calm. There are also women who are more sensitive or more accustomed to inner sensations, listening to what is going on inside them and there, they will perceive it a little earlier. So there is nothing serious about not having a lot of symptoms in early pregnancy.

Where to touch to find out if you are pregnant?

“The first symptom of pregnancy is the absence of periods.“, recalls the midwife. And to point out that “Breast tension can also be significant. It is due to hormonal changes that occur at the start of pregnancy and cause the mammary gland to proliferate, which is under tension, a bit like at the end of the premenstrual cycle. Other typical symptoms of early pregnancy, abdominal bloating and constipation, sometimes intense fatigue sometimes accompanied by slight irritability.

Asymptomatic pregnancy: is it a bad sign for the baby?

The absence of symptoms during pregnancy is not a sign that the baby is not well. Indeed, some women have vomiting for months, others not at all. On the other hand, from the second trimester of pregnancy, if the baby has not been felt for several hours, while we felt it regularly until then, Benoit Le Goëdec advises to start by getting in touch with your baby and talking to him, to try to make him react. He moves less or more, do you notice small bleeding? We go to visit to the emergency room to control. “We will listen to the sounds of the heart, we will perform an echo and we will check her fetal vitality”, he says. Generally, “During pregnancy, a decrease in fetal active movements, bleeding, excessive or regular uterine contractions or fever always lead to consultation.”

Is this a form of pregnancy denial?

“Not feeling your baby move from 4 months of pregnancy is quite rare, but it happens”confirms the midwife. “When a mother-to-be has neither symptoms nor the feeling that her baby is moving, it is likely that she suddenly did not realize her pregnancy despite the absence of periods, in this case, we will talk about partial denial“, says Benoit Le Goëdec. That is to say a denial of one or two trimesters. In partial denial, “women know somehow that they are pregnant, but the brain makes a denial that can last up to 5 or 6 months of pregnancy, to protect them from the family environment, marital, ‘IVG or even possible trauma’, he explains. But, he reassures: “for the majority, it is not a denial, they know they are pregnant, the perception of movements simply takes longer to refine. However, it is often an anguish for them, because not feeling their baby move or having symptoms of early pregnancy, lead them to fear that their pregnancy will not progress. To secure them, he reminds us that if there is no bleeding, it means that the pregnancy is progressing.

Do pregnancy symptoms eventually come and how badly?

“The symptoms of early pregnancy, which are called the minor ailments of pregnancy, will not necessarily appear in all women, but the symptoms of pregnancy life, yes”, reveals the midwife: the belly will eventually come out as the uterus grows and the baby will move. Besides, sometimes, when you announce your pregnancy, the belly starts to come out all of a sudden because the baby changes position, and arrives at the same level as a woman whose belly will gradually grow. He recalls in passing that “it is not the aspect or the size of the belly which reflects the good health of the fetus, because it depends on the position of the baby and the morphology of the woman, but the fundal height measurement“. Ditto for the other symptoms (nausea, intense fatigue, etc.) which can begin to appear only from the announcement: their pregnancy becomes official, they feel recognized as pregnant by those around them. But, “their occurrence or not and their intensity is very variable from one woman to another depending on the situation in which they are at the physical, psychological, environmental, family level and the way in which they live and need to express their pregnancy”, concludes Benoit Le Goëdec.