A 22-year-old woman probably got the biggest shock of her life when she gave birth to a baby girl on the first day of her new job without even having a clue that she had been pregnant all this while. Unbelievably Klara Dollan did not display any of the common signs of pregnancy – morning sickness, back pain or even a visible baby bump – and was even on the Pill before her daughter’s birth.
It all started when Dollan began to have cramps early that morning and presumed that she was just having a painful period. She not only managed to endure the 40-minute office commute from her home but also stood through a two-hour meeting despite feeling extremely unwell.
Later when she went back home, she spent an hour and a half walking back and forth from the bathroom to her bedroom. Overwhelmed by the pain, she even began bleeding profusely and suddenly felt the urge to ‘push’. It was at that moment when she saw the baby’s head coming out. “It’s a baby, oh my God! It’s a baby” she recalls screaming at that time, according to the Daily Mail.
After a few minutes, Dollan was holding her healthy baby girl in her arms and was taken to the hospital via an ambulance. She says that it was incredibly difficult and awkward for her to convince her mother later that she had unexpectedly given birth.
This mysterious phenomenon is known as cryptic pregnancy. Dr Helen Stokes-Lampard, a clinical senior lecturer and spokesperson for the Royal College of General Practitioners, says that she has seen around half a dozen cases of cryptic pregnancies in her 20 years as a GP.
Mostly young women or those who have never been pregnant before or women with erratic menstrual cycles are likely to be affected by this condition. Moreover, some women may also continue to have regular periods throughout their pregnancy and can only find out after a scan at the local GP.
