High-Risk Pregnancy
rebeccaford1977
member
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Fibroid during pregnancy
rebeccaford1977
member
I have an 8 cm fibroid in my uterine wall. It pushes against my bladder and is obstructing part of my ovary. There was talk of possibly needing a c section. I am wondering what experiences others have had with fibroids in pregnancy. Should I expect a lot of pain / bleeding? Will it grow and cause complications? I will be under consultant led care so I presume I am high risk pregnancy. At only 5 weeks I have a long way to go.
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Re: Fibroid during pregnancy
I am late on this thread, but spent my entire pregnancy on this board due to a fibroid.
Mine was posterior and at the fundus. As PP have said, many women have fibroids and many go on to have healthy worry free pregnancies. At 5 weeks, it's way too early to tell what, if any, trouble it may cause you. So my best advice is to take a deep breath, and try to remain worry free! It's probably only going to amount to more frequent u/s and monitoring. And that might just mean more chances to see LO as he/she grows.
In my case, the fibroid did not cause any problems. Mine was HUGE. In pregnancy they can grow a lot, and mine grew to be 13x13cm. It is at the fundus, and to our dismay, the placenta attached directly over it.
Due to that attachment, there was A LOT more worry about: competition for blood supply and resulting IUGR, placenta accreta (yikes!), and then fibroid necrosis syndrome. The last is caused when the fibroid out grows its blood supply and starts to break down leading to an inflammatory response that can cause uterine irritability. This can be dangerous, but is sort of anticipated in cases like mine.
I was admitted at 27 weeks with fibroid necrosis syndrome- painful! Though I, thankfully, didn't go into labor I had contractions 1-2 minutes apart- they were painful. I think they noted a few possible decels as well. So I spent the night in the hospital and ended up taking a big dose of Indocin. Fortunately, I only needed two doses as this medication can cause complications for baby. I guess the good thing was that my baby won in the fight for blood supply, and he grew just fine. There were zero complications for the medication.
I always wanted to know what to expect which meant a lot of tough conversations with my OB and MFM. That's also why I come here and share my story. This board was helpful for me during my pregnancy (also complicated by hyperemesis- ugh).
I hope you have zero complications like PPs. My fibroid seems to be the rare case. I did have a c/s due to the suspected accreta, but in the end there was no accreta (though there was an extremely dilated uterine artery).
HTH! Good luck.
I am 16 weeks pregnant and also have uterine fibroids - one large (6 cm) intramural fibroid located on the top of my uterus inside the uterine wall, and two slightly smaller ones growing on the outside of the uterus (one subserosal and one pedunculated subserosal). I've been doing a lot of research and statistics show an elevated risk for pre-term labor, C-section, delivery implcations, and malpresentation of the fetus for women with large, multiple, and/or subserosal/submucosal fibroids. (This is a great study, by the way: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2876319/)
I would love to hear some real-life stories from women who delivered with or without complications from fibroids. So far, and knock on wood, I have not had any complications other than tenderness and a lumpy-looking belly.
Thanks!!
Simone