What is implantation bleeding? and how do you know what it looks or feels like?
Imagine this scenario, You're trying for a baby, desperate to conceive. Your period is due in around a weeks time. You've been feeling quite crampy all morning, you go to the bathroom, and there it is, blood! Now you have start all over again. So you mark it down in your diary as an early period. and eagerly await for next month.
Over the next couple of weeks you start to feel fatigue setting in, you're tired and yet you don't know why. You may be feeling just a bit nauseas, with a stuffy nose.
All of these symptoms may be a sign that your last ‘period’ was really implantation bleeding. Did it happen around a week to a few days before your period was due? Was the bleeding quite light rather than a normal ‘flow'? Was the colour the same as your normal menstrual blood? Implantation bleeding normally produces a pink or brownish blood, more like a light discharge or spotting than a normal period. How long did the bleeding last for? A few hours, a couple of days?
IF the bleeding did progress to a full menstrual flow, then it is highly unlikely that this was implantation bleeding. You may have just got your period a few days early. Although some women have been known to experience a period every month of their entire pregnancy!
Now link in any other feelings or symptoms you may have.
- Light to moderate headaches.
- A crampy feeling in your lower abdomen, similar to period pains.
- Nausea.
- A blocked or stuffy nose.
- Sore or tender breasts.
- Tiredness.
- Dizzy spells or fainting.
These are just a few of the many very early pregnancy symptoms that you may feel after pregnancy implantation bleeding has taken place. On the other hand some women feel no symptoms at all!
Without you even realising it, your body could be getting ready for the most amazing 9 months of your life.
Why does implantation bleeding happen?
If you have sex around the time of ovulation, and the egg is fertilized. It will travel on down the fallopian tube and into the uterus. It will then implant itself into the endometrial tissue. This is the blood lining that grows in the uterus. This causes a little of the endometrial tissue to come away from the wall of the uterus and flow out. Implantation into the uterus will occur within 6 to 8 days after ovulation, if the egg has been fertilized.
Pregnancy implantation bleeding is not a problem, it will not effect the embryo. Not every woman will experience this extremely early pregnancy bleeding either, Only around 20 or 30% .
It is normally too early to take a pregnancy test at the implantation stage. Hormone levels will still be fairly stable. So it is just a matter of waiting it out, and keeping those fingers firmly crossed.
Article by Julie Gardner (c) 2008
You can visit me, Julie , at http://www.new-baby-and-beyond.com/pregnancy-implantation-bleeding.html for more information on implantation bleeding.
Or take a hop over to http://www.new-baby-and-beyond.com/early-pregnancy-symptoms.html for lots more early pregnancy symptoms.
