WHAT IS A BIOCHEMICAL PREGNANCY?

WHAT IS A BIOCHEMICAL PREGNANCY?

WHAT IS A BIOCHEMICAL PREGNANCY?

A chemical pregnancy is a very early miscarriage that happens within the first five weeks of pregnancy. An embryo forms and may even embed in your uterus lining (implantation), but then it stops developing. Chemical pregnancies occur so early that many people who miscarry don’t realize it.The medical definition of a biochemical pregnancy is the absence of an identifiable pregnancy on ultrasound examination despite a positive urine or blood hCG pregnancy test. What does this mean? The  β-hCG, which is the pregnancy hormone rises, as it should in any pregnancy, but then the level unexpectedly does not continue to rise as it should or starts to fall.  This characterizes a biochemical pregnancy and differentiates it from a normal clinical pregnancy. Specifically, a low peak in β-hCG (< 100 mIU/mL) is usually followed by a rapid decline