I’m not talking about the food baby burrowing in your intestines after that huge taco platter you just ate.
In case you were looking for another thing to worry about, phantom pregnancy is a real ailment that any woman can experience. The terrifying condition is the opposite of the TLC television show “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant.”
Instead of being pregnant and experiencing no symptoms, the woman in question has all the symptoms, including her water breaking. However, like the batteries of our favorite childhood toys, the baby is not included.
A well-known case of phantom pregnancy happened in the mid-1960s.
Dr. Radebaugh, a young pediatrician, was called upon one evening to help a pregnant woman, according to the New York Times.
When the doctor arrived to the scene (back in the days when doctors came to you rather than vice versa), the expecting mother was writhing in pain with a belly the size of a watermelon bulging from her abdomen. The doctor hastily rushed the woman to the hospital after her water broke on him (ew). He checked her in, left her in the hands of the staff, and went home for the evening.
When Dr. Radebaugh called the next morning to check on his patient, he was told she had been checked out shortly after he left. The woman had only been experiencing symptoms of pregnancy rather than actual childbirth. That must have been quite a surprise for her.
It’s possible to go through nine months of pregnancy symptoms without actual pregnancy:
Before you get too worried about experiencing a phantom pregnancy, know it is quite rare. For every 22,000 births, about 1-6 women experience a phantom pregnancy.
Psychiatrists associate this bizarre condition with an extreme desire to be pregnant or a strong wish to be involved in the pregnancy process. Dr. Mary Erskine, a biologist at Boston University who studies the neurology of reproductive systems, believes anxiety plays a large role in these rare cases.
The intense desire to be emotionally involved creates a hormonal secretion, which in turn tricks the mind, which further tricks the body, which creates a runaway effect until you end up with morning sickness, broken water, and no baby.
Well, that’s just terrifying!
[Featured Image Credit: NBC 15]