It is so amazing how the human psychology creates and triggers some physical and systemic body changes in the human body..
I am going to talk on the phynomenom "Pseudocyesis" which is when a woman starts having signs and symptoms and even body changes of that of a pregnant woman but in the factual sence there is really no pregnancy, it is more psychologically caused than physical..
Pseudocyesis:
It Is the appearance of clinical or subclinical signs an symptomps associated with pregnancy when the organism is not actually pregnant. Its sometimes is reffered to as false pregnancy or hysterical pregnancy. This phenomenon is common amongst other animals (mammals) e.g Dogs and mice, But I am going to be talking about its effect on the human body system.
It is generally believed and scientifically proven that pseudocyesis is caused by changes in the Endocrine system of the body, leading to the release of hormones that arouse some physical and systemic changes in the body which is similar to those that appear during pregnancy.. There are different signs and symptoms aroused by the release of this hormones and we are going to be looking at them next...
Signs and Symptoms of Pseudocyesis:
The signs and symptoms of pseudocyesis are similar to that of true pregnancy which are often very hard to distinguish from. Natural signs like amenorrhoea ( Absence of Menstral Period), Morningsickeness ( Nausea), Weight gain and tender breast are usually present during the Pseudocyesis Experience. Most health care professionals are mose times decieved by the symptoms associated with pseudocyesis, As a matter of fact, research has shown that 18% of women with this hysterical pregnancy were at one time diagnosed pregnant by medical professionals due to the signs and symptoms they were experiencing
Abdominal distension is one of the most common hallmark symptom of pseudocyesis as it is the expansion of the abdomen in the same manner as it does during pregnancy so that the woman looks and feels pregnant.
Menstral irregularity is the second most common physical and systemic sign of pseudocyesis in the woman. Even though there is no fetus present (50-75%) are reported to experience the sensation of fatal moments aso called Quickening..
Other common sings and symptoms include gastrointestinal symptoms, breast secretion, labour pains, Uterine enlargement and softening of the cervix. 1% of women eventually do experience false labour pains during this experience. So proper check-ups should be carried out and confirmed from more than one medical professional when experiencing signs of pregnancy because its symptoms and signs are same as that of natural pregnancy.
Causes of Pseudocyesis:
There are various explanations as to what might be the cause or causes of this phenomenon, but none of them is universally accepted because of the complex involvement of Cortical, Endocrine, Psychogenic and Hypothalamic factors. Some mechanisms have been proposed as they include the effect of stress on the Hypothalamo-pituitary adrenal axis, Constipation, movement of intestinal gas and weight gain.. This syndrome is also mostly caused phycologically, i.e when the women often thinks about pregnancy and see her self pregnant in her thinking often times, it aso triggers the signs and symptoms of pseudocyesis.
This syndrome is not known to have an underlying cause, it is more of a psychological trigger.
Treatment:
There are no general recommendations to the treatment of pseudocyesis with medications, as it has to do more with the psychological than the physical. However in some cases, the patient may be given some medications patterning some symptoms like Cessation of enstration e.t.c..
Refferal to a therapist should be made for some patients with underlying psychological problems..
The treatment that has had the most recorded success is by demonstrating to the patient that she is not actually pregnant by the use of ultrasound or other scan imaging techniques..
Note:
The rate of pseudocyesis in the United States has declined significantly in the past century. In the 1940s there was one occurrence for approximately every 250 pregnancies. This rate has since dropped to between one and six occurrences for every 22,000 births.[4] The average age of the affected woman is 33, though cases have been reported for girls as young as 6 and women as old as 79. More than two-thirds of women who experience pseudocyesis are married, and about one-third have been pregnant at least once.
