A MUM claims she was still wearing size six clothes when she found out she was six weeks from birth.
Beth Crowder, 25, says she had no idea she was carrying, and had conceived just three weeks after the birth of her firstborn.
The NHS says you can get pregnant three weeks after the birth of a baby, including if you’re breastfeeding and your periods haven’t started again.
But being first-time parents, Beth and her partner Liam Duggan, 31, hadn’t planned to be a family of four any time soon.
They were delighted when they welcomed son Brodie in August last year after just two weeks of trying to get pregnant.
The couple wanted more children but planned to wait two years before trying again.
However after Beth went to hospital due to stomach pains when Brodie was eight months old, she discovered she was already pregnant and due in a matter of weeks.
Admin assistant Beth gave birth to Bailey in July.
“I was having pains in my stomach so I went for a scan and they said I was 30 weeks pregnant,” Beth, from the Wirral, said.
“It was quite a big surprise.
“Not only that I was pregnant again, but that I was 30 weeks along. He’d been hidden the whole time.
“There were no symptoms.
“I rang Liam when I left the hospital and asked if he was sitting down.
“When I told him I was pregnant, he fell silent. He asked how far along I was and I said I was due in about six weeks.
“He couldn’t believe it. It was stressful. We didn’t know what we were going to do.
“A lot of people didn’t believe us at first.”
A hidden pregnancy, otherwise known as a cryptic pregnancy, can go unnoticed until late pregnancy or even labour.
The pair were worried about how they’d be able to afford a second baby so soon.
Luckily, Beth had kept hold of Brodie’s baby clothes and only needed to buy a double pram and cot.
Beth said: “It was hard financially having another so soon. We do live paycheck to paycheck but we make it work.
“I’m on maternity leave again which was stressful because they were expecting me back.
“Thankfully I kept hold of all of Brodie’s stuff because I didn’t want to let go of it. His clothes can be passed down to his little brother.
“At the start it was tough because one baby would cry and wake up the other, but when you get a routine going everything just rolls.
“We also had a lot of support.”
Beth’s bump didn’t start to show until she was eight months pregnant with Bailey and she was still wearing size-six clothes.
She says she is keeping insurance worker Liam at arm’s length to avoid having a third baby in the near future.
Beth said: “I’m not planning on having any more.
“I’m not letting Liam near me. I’m poking him with a stick and making sure he’s at the other end of the sofa.
“It was hard enough with one baby. Maybe I’m super fertile.”
Beth says she felt like she’d physically recovered from giving birth to Brodie but doing it again so soon took a mental toll.
She said: “Physically, I was recovered.
“Mentally, it was a big thing for me.
“It took me a while to be OK once I knew I was having a second in such a short amount of time.
“I’m mentally OK now, but it really took a while even once I had Bailey, I was thinking ‘Wow, is this really my life?’.
“If I didn’t have my family, friends and partner around me, it would really be different.”
She says although it can be hard work, she wouldn’t change the age gap between her sons.
She said: “Their relationship is amazing. It was hard for Brodie at first because he was used to it being me, me, me.
“He would poke Bailey but now he tries to help. He tries to put his dummy in but it ends up going in his eye.
“I couldn’t wish for their relationship to be better. I can see how close they’re going to be when they get older.
“Everything has turned out perfectly. This time two years ago I didn’t plan on having two kids, but I wouldn’t change my life for anything.”
What is a “cryptic pregnancy”?
By medical definition, a cryptic pregnancy is one that is failed to be detected by medical testing.
There may be signs there, but essentially a cryptic pregnancy is one where these signs are not obvious to the woman, or she denies they are there.
A pregnancy test may come back negative even after the woman has missed her period for a number of medical reasons.
If she does get an ultrasound despite a negative pregnancy test, it’s possible a pregnancy won’t show up in the first trimester because of problems such as the way the uterus is shaped, or simply because the medic doesn’t spend time looking for it if they don’t believe it’s there.
Most people notice symptoms of pregnancy such as tender and swollen breasts, mood swings, fatigue, and nausea early on in their pregnancy.
But this could be dismissed by the woman as being caused by something else, such as a condition or diet.
There are also cases where someone become pregnant in their early teens before they understand the symptoms of pregnancy.
Cryptic pregnancies aren’t common, but they’re not unheard of, either. Anecdotal evidence suggests that women might not be aware of their pregnancies in up 1 in 475 cases, according to a British Medical Journal report.
Some women are more likely to have a cryptic pregnancy than others because they believe it is not possible for them to have a child.
It includes those with PCOS, who may have been told it will be difficult for them to have a child, and women on birth control pills, because the woman thinks the pill will protect her entirely from conceiving.
Women with low body fat may also fail to detect they are pregnant if their periods are irregular or absent as a result of being so slim.
Babies born from a cryptic pregnancy tend to be underweight, and the lack of prenatal care may affect their development.
But what about the bump?
A women may have a smaller bump – one she and others around her deem insignificant – for a number of reasons.
TikTok sensation NHS surgeon Dr Karan Rajan explained: “Most women have an anteverted uterus, [meaning] it’s slightly tilted forwards.
“But one in five have a backwards tilt towards the spine.”
The GP explained that for some women, their uterus may remain tiled backwards for the duration of their pregnancy.
“This ‘backwards growth’ could hide any bump,” he stated.
Other factors that could result in an invisible pregnancy could be “previous surgery, endometriosis and other gynaecological conditions [that] could scar the utroseacral ligament”.
“These are basically biological anchors which keep the uterus fixed to the spine and inside the pelvic cavities,” Dr Rajan explained.
“If these are stiff because of scarring, these ligaments can literally hold the uterus back and stop it from protruding too far out.”
People who are taller also have more of a chance of not displaying a noticeable bump when they’re expecting, the NHS surgeon went on.
“If you’re taller, you’ll have a longer torso so there’ll be more space for the uterus to develop upwards rather than just outwards,” he said, possibly giving the appearance of a small bump.
And if you have particularly “well developed” abs, this may make your uterus “develop closer to your core rather than protruding out”.
