While it may seem impossible to confuse ovarian cysts for pregnancy, it happens. This is because the signs and symptoms of cysts on ovaries can sometimes resemble those of pregnancy. Confusing the two can sometimes have disastrous effects on a woman's life since either condition may need the immediate attention of a doctor. This is because early detection of cysts is usually crucial to treating it and assuming that it is a pregnancy might give the cysts time to grow and complications of ovarian cysts to develop.
Assuming a pregnancy is just but an effect of cysts might also deny your baby the care that it needs and in case of any complications, this might have a negative effect on its development and growth. The following are reasons why women sometimes confuse symptoms of ovarian cysts and those of pregnancy.
A bloated abdomen is a common sign of cysts on ovaries. With the continued growth of the cysts, they sometimes reach a size that causes a bump on a woman's abdomen. This may sometimes be mistaken for a baby especially if accompanied by some of the common signs of cysts that women experience.
When this happens, the cyst is usually large and might have started to affect the functioning of a woman's reproductive system or that of adjacent organs and thus the need for a woman to go for medical checkup. Assuming that it is a pregnancy might only make the condition worse because of the delayed treatment of ovarian cysts.
Cysts on ovaries can sometimes cause the body to produce hormones. Some of these hormones are usually those that are used to detect a pregnancy. As a result, a woman who takes a pregnancy test whose result is determined by the presence of these hormones might get a false positive result for pregnancy. While this may be rare, it happens.
Delayed and missed periods are early symptoms of pregnancy and ones which most women usually rely on to tell whether they are pregnant or not. Most of the time, this is usually a reliable way to tell whether you are pregnant or not. However, this may be cause by some other factors.
The presence of ovarian cysts is one of the factors that cause a missed period. Cysts on ovaries are known to sometimes affect the hormonal balance in a woman's body. These changes usually affect a woman's menstrual cycle and thus can sometimes cause her periods to delay. She may sometimes even miss her periods and this may make her to think that she is pregnant.
Ovarian cysts can also cause some of the common pregnancy symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, vomiting, nausea and lethargy due to the effect they sometimes have on progesterone and estrogen levels.
