Dr. Marjorie Greenfield
Specializing in pregnancy and birth.
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 Ask Dr. Greenfield
Subchorionic Hematoma in Early Pregnancy | | | QUESTION | | | Dear Dr. Greenfield,
I am wondering if you can address the topic of subchorionic hematoma in early pregnancy. I have been diagnosed with such an abnormality measuring three centimeters by two centimeters according to my last ultrasound. I am eight weeks pregnant with my first child. I can find virtually no information about this condition. Although it is comforting to know that many women may experience early pregnancy bleeding and go on to deliver healthy babies, I am not quite sure I fall into this category. Can you speak to your experience in treating women with this condition?— New Mother-to-Be, Cleveland, OH | | | ANSWER |
September 17, 2001 | | | Dear New Mother-to-Be,
Ultrasound has given us the ability to see things that years ago went unseen. Sometimes this is good, and sometimes it only serves to increase anxiety without much benefit. Twenty or thirty years ago, your subchorionic hematoma would have been called a threatened miscarriage--bleeding with no other signs that the pregnancy wasn't doing well. And you could have relied on the statistics that about half of women who have some bleeding in early pregnancy get to have their baby.
Now you have a piece of information that is anxiety provoking, to say the least. What does it mean? There are some data to suggest that overall subchorionic hematoma confers some risk throughout the pregnancy. While you are probably no more likely to miscarry than anyone else with first trimester bleeding, pregnancies complicated by subchorionic hematoma are at greater risk for preterm labor and placental abruption. That said, please keep in mind that the majority of pregnancies that progress out of the first trimester have normal outcomes.
For more information, there is a highly technical article that looked at pregnancy outcome after diagnosis of subchorionic hematoma. See Ball, Robert H., M.D. et al, "The clinical significance of ultrasonographically detected subchorionic hemorrhages," American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 174, no. 3 (1996): 996-1002.— by Marjorie Greenfield, M.D. |
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