Did you hear about the woman who had hiccups, day and night, for the last five months of her pregnancy? The woman even hiccuped all the way through her delivery. I know this is a true story, because that woman was me.
After suffering with hiccups for months on end, I had a beautiful, healthy baby girl. And a story to dine out on -- probably for the rest of my life. And I'm not alone: The bizarre and the unbelievable are part and parcel of many women's pregnancies. And as unique as some of these tales may sound, the medical facts underlying their specifics are usually applicable to all pregnant women.
In the case of my hiccups, doctors came to believe that they were the result of normal pregnancy hormones run just slightly amok. These hormones, which work to relax muscles and ligaments all over the body to help the baby pass more easily through the pelvis, in my body seemed to work especially hard on my diaphragm, causing it to spasm. In most pregnant women, the worst side effects of such hormones is the potential for back injury, and common gastrointestinal issues, such as acid reflux and constipation (which arise from relaxed abdominal smooth muscle).
Since my own experience, I find myself scanning tabloid headlines about bizarre pregnancies. Who really knows? I started to wonder. Maybe that woman really didn't know she was pregnant until she was six months along. Maybe you can have a baby in 30 minutes and show up for your wedding on time six hours later. Maybe somebody else will have pregnancy hiccups.
Such things happen more often than you think, as these strange but true pregnancy tales illustrate.
