Is Implantation Bleeding a Pregnancy Sign?
Early pregnancy diagnostics is an exciting venture, especially if your pregnancy is long-awaited. Normally a woman is waiting for a delay in her period as the first pregnancy sign. However, there are others as well. The earliest of them can be spotted as soon as the 10-12th day after the intercourse when the conception has happened. On the other hand, early pregnancy signs are rather an individual thing that may not reveal at all in some women. Nevertheless, isn’t it interesting to know if you can tell that you are pregnant earlier than a pregnancy test? Let’s find out.
The Earliest Pregnancy Signs: Implantation
Implantation is truly the very first physiological process, indicating your pregnancy. Most women either don’t know about implantation or pay no attention to it. Let’s throw more light on this unique phenomenon.
After ovulation the ovum is released from the ovary into a fallopian tube. If it gets impregnated by a sperm, a fertilized egg is formed and it begins to travel towards the womb. 5 days after fertilization the egg consists of approximately 100 cells and is referred to as a blastocyst. As for the timing, the fertilized egg makes the way from the fallopian tube to the uterine cavity within 5 days after ovulation and takes another 1-2 days to attach to its wall. Implantation is the process of the fertilized egg’s embedment into the uterine wall. As implantation is, actually, the first contact of the blastocyst with the mother’s organism, any physiological signs of pregnancy are impossible until this moment that is, as a matter of fact, nothing than the pregnancy starting point.
It should be mentioned that the fertilized egg is infinitesimally small by the time of implantation, so it can be hardly seen at all. Only after embedment it can be called an embryo.
Symptoms of Implantation
There may be 2 implantation symptoms:
- Implantation bleeding (usually scanty brownish discharge)
- Low abdominal cramps
Implantation bleeding is rather spotting than actual bleeding. It occurs due to microscopic ruptures of blood vessels in the uterine wall, caused by the embedment. Some women report 1-2 drops of blood on the pantyliner while for others implantation passes completely unnoticed.
As for the low abdominal cramps, gynecologists claim that they are not possible due to the microscopic size of the blastocyst. However, there were women, who insisted that they physically felt slight pains during the moment when the future embryo was attaching itself to the womb wall.
When Does Implantation Occur?
It usually occurs a week prior to the expected menstruation. Most women take it for a forerunner of menstrual bleeding and don’t think about pregnancy. If spotting starts closer to the first day of period, the chances that you are dealing with implantation bleeding are much fewer.
How Else Can You Detect Implantation?
If you are working on basal body temperature charts, besides spotting and certain personal sensations, you may spot a more reliable pregnancy sign – a dip of the temperature curve in the 2nd phase of your menstrual cycle. Such a dip can occur between the 6th and the 10th day after ovulation. 50% of women, however, don’t have any temperature dips like this in their BBT charts though they do get pregnant.
So, what can we sum up about the early pregnancy signs? The experts believe that although implantation symptoms don’t belong to the reliable pregnancy symptoms, they can indicate that pregnancy is possible and you can do a pregnancy test.
