“There’s no way you can’t notice you’re pregnant!” Again and again we hear from women who realize late, or during childbirth, that they are expecting a child. When a pregnancy is not noticed until the 20th week, it is called repressed. So the women don’t realize they are pregnant half the time.
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What Kind Of Women Must They Be?
Contrary to the stereotype, these are not just dumb women. Unnoticed pregnancies are everywhere. Studies show that women who do not notice their pregnancy do not have any particular common characteristics. A stronger tendency has been found only in very young and older women. Most of them were even aware that this phenomenon exists. So how does it happen?
Mental Defense
Repression is the key word here. Either the woman is firmly convinced that she can’t get pregnant anyway, or a child is not even on her radar. It wouldn’t fit into her current life plan, so she represses what shouldn’t be.
It’s Anything But A Child
Signs of pregnancy are simply reinterpreted. The increase comes from a bad diet, the lack of periods because of stress and the moving child – that is the intestine. Besides a repressed, there is also the denied pregnancy. Women actually know they are pregnant, but push the thought aside.
Tense Abdominal Muscles Hide The Little Belly
The woman unconsciously tenses her abdominal muscles as long as she does not know about the baby. In a repressed pregnancy, the belly hardly bulges, or much less, than usual. However, this changes as soon as a doctor detects the pregnancy. Knowing her condition causes her to relax her abdominal muscles.
Repressed Pregnancy: A Protective Mechanism
Not noticing pregnancy, or not wanting to acknowledge it, is a protective mechanism. With the thought that a child just doesn’t fit into one’s life plans, it seems much easier not to notice it at all. Conflict-shy women therefore potentially suffer from a greater risk of not being aware of pregnancy at all.
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