Molar Pregnancies

[Buzzard]

A friend of mine who has been staunchly anti abortion recently was diagnosed with a partial molar pregnancy and had to undergo a D/C and has been told she CANNOT get pregnant for atleast a year or she likely will get another cancerous incident and has a high chance of dying.

Holy crap! I had never heard of this... I wonder how Dougie would handle such a situation. Since its not a "baby" the D/C was ok by her, but she's really having a hard time with the mandatory birth control. Again, the argument being "gods will"...

http://www.webmd.com/baby/tc/molar-preg ... c-overview

http://pregnancy.about.com/od/cancerinp ... gnancy.htm

[GeoBQn]

That's one of those things I'm scared to look up or click on links because I'm afraid there will be pictures.

[keeperrox]

That's one of those things I'm scared to look up or click on links because I'm afraid there will be pictures.

I checked... No pictures.

[NurseNell]

There was a recent thread on this. Someone on a blog had had a molar pregnancy and her husband decided they would ignore the doctor's recommendation not to get pregnant for a year. Do a search here in the forum of the term molar pregnancy.

[Austin]

Back in the 1990's, this happened to a good friend of mine with her first pregnancy and she did get cancer from it. She did not get pregnant again, but after a molar pregnancy is removed, there's a ongoing risk that it will "reoccur" and be malignant, even with a thorough D&C. So that's what happened to her despite being closely followed by her doctor. She had to undergo chemo and the whole bit. I drove to Pittsburgh to help her pick out a wig and it was really worrisome and we wondered if she was going to make it. She did recover and went on to have three children, but it is definitely something that needs to be treated. Much of the time, the pregnancy results from the sperm fertilizing an "empty" egg, so there is no "baby" to begin with. In other cases, with partial molar pregnancies, there is an extremely abnormal fetus and abnormal placenta and it is never viable.

I would hate for this to happen to a fundie women where she would be discouraged from getting treatment and/or got pregnant again within a year because of her religious beliefs.

[Buzzard]

Scary... just when you thought only diet coke can give you cancer... so can babies!

She's (luckily) fundie on beliefs but not to the extent that she wont seek medical treatment or listen to her doctor. At this point I think the true rub is between what SHE wants (babies) and what god has given her (this).

[Buzzard]

Its here in the meredith thread

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3055&p=68242&hilit=molar#p68242

[Rosa]

AAAUGH. Molar pregnancy articles give me nightmares. I'm so sorry for your friend.

[kb2]

A relative of mine had a molar (could've been half-molar, it was a while ago) pregnancy and went to a Catholic hospital/physician in the late 60s. At the time, they could only reliably find a fetus's heartbeat at five months, so even though they diagnosed the molar pregnancy in the second month, they waited to do the D&C until the fifth month to make absolutely sure they weren't "killing" a fetus. (You can have a triploid fetus, but it has absolutely a zero chance of surviving to birth, and very often dies early on in the pregnancy, if it even manages to form at all, which it may not.) She didn't get cancer, but it took an emotional toll because she was excited about the pregnancy, found out it was nonviable, and then had to bleed for three months from this non-baby-producing pregnancy. She was pretty mad when she found out that the wait wasn't for an actual medical reason and that there was a risk of cancer for waiting.

Catholic hospitals don't work that way anymore at all, especially with advances in baby-heartbeat-finding technology. And they tend to be cool with saving women with ectopic pregnancies, so I'm sure they'd feel the same about molar ones now.

[CanadianHippie]

And they tend to be cool with saving women with ectopic pregnancies, so I'm sure they'd feel the same about molar ones now.

Not so sure about that. My understanding is that with an ectopic pregnancy, they justify fetal death by claiming it an unintended side effect of treating the issue that cause the ectopic pregnancy in the first place. I'm not sure they can claim that if they perform a D&C to end a molar pregnancy if the fetus has a heartbeat.

[Dinorah]

This sounds scary. Anyway, if mandatory birth control's an issue, there's still abstinence. Sure, it really sucks to abstain one year, but if the alternative is risking losing your life... or does even that go against "God's will" to have babies like rabbits?

[maybeizfundie]

Had one. It sucked. :(

Would NFP (practiced very conservatively) be an option for her?

Was hers actually cancerous, or just the general "molar pregnancies are potentially cancerous"? They're not all cancerous. The recommendations vary from doctor to doctor, from 6 months to a year on the wait time, depending on the specifics. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/molar- ... prevention

ETA:nevermind. Brain fart.

[Katiebug]

That sucks for your friend. :( It must be really hard to want a baby and have to wait a year or more to try again - for some women for whom age is not on their side, that may mean not having a child at all or not having the family size they had hoped for.

I'm fairly sure I've read at Catholic Answers that couples should use strictly-applied NFP or actually abstain completely for the amount of time if there is a potentially life-threatening outcome to a pregnancy. I would assume molar pregnancies fall into that category. There is a form of NFP (Marquette?) that even uses a fertility monitor for confirmation that ovulation has already passed, and the failure rates are around that of the Pill.

Most women of childbearing age aren't aware of molar pregnancy. Early in my pregnancy I had some spotting and went in for blood work and an early ultrasound at 5 weeks. My OB said that my hCG may have indicated twins, it was so high, but there was clearly only one embryo on ultrasound. I asked my doctor if it was a problem to have high hCG and he said it was actually a very good thing because it meant it was unlikely I'd miscarry, and advised me not to run to Dr. Google. Of course I went home and did just that. :lol: I read what the level "should" have been at 5 weeks and several reputable health websites listed molar and partial molar pregnancies as a possibility, which I then made the mistake of researching. I managed to develop a fear of molar pregnancy that was only really resolved 3 weeks later when we saw a healthy baby and heartbeat at my first prenatal visit. (My OB was never concerned.) My hCG stayed high through my first trimester at least, because my hCG level was 3 times the median at 12 weeks for my genetic screening. That plus weirdness with another blood marker contributed to making me high risk on the genetic screening but an amnio cleared up that concern. Little Bug's placenta apparently just liked making a ton of hCG...

If I hadn't had been googling "high hCG" I probably never would have even known that molar pregnancies happen. I don't think many women are aware of them the way we know that ectopic pregnancies are a possibility - however, molar pregnancies are much more rare so perhaps that explains it.