Athlete didn't realize she was pregnant, gives birth while training

[Puppycow]

Chile weightlifter has unexpected baby during training

Even though the baby was born prematurely, how is it even possible for a woman not to realize she is pregnant so late in a pregnancy?

 

[GlennB]

You'd think several missed periods would be a clue.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

A friend of mine had a hidden pregnancy and had no idea whatsoever, until she went into labour - and she went to about full term. And it was her third kid, so it's not like she doesn't know the signs. She was under a lot of stress looking after her mother who was very ill and put the absent periods down to stress/possible beginning of early menopause. I saw her a month or so before she gave birth, and she just looked like she had put on a bit of weight; she really didn't look pregnant at all.

In most cases, there is some element of psychological denial going on. Maybe in my friend's case she had so much stress going on that she couldnt cope with the thought of another child in the circumstances, and denial kicked in with her rationalising away the signs.

 

[zooterkin]

You'd think several missed periods would be a clue.

I believe it's quite common for female athletes to miss periods when they are training heavily. I think it may be related to levels of body fat.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

This paper quotes the rate of denied pregnancies at 1 in 475 births.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=6ed18605cec53869f778330794e1e2a1


ETA: Also there is a popular myth that this is a phenomenon mainly occuring in very young (teenage) mothers, who are pregnant for the first time. This paper shows that there are no such useful clearcut risk factors in predicting denied pregnancies:

http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00016340601159199

Here's a case study:

http://ukpmc.ac.uk/articlerender.cgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=18301713

And an article about different types of denial:

http://www.cfah.org/hbns/archives/viewSupportDoc.cfm?supportingDocID=360