LUDHIANA: A 40-year-old woman Veerpal from Ferozepur — who was brought to a private hospital by her husband in a life-threatening condition with a huge and extensive
uterus in her 17th week of molar pregnancy — is now recovering. She had five foetuses, out of which two were alive and three dead. The molar pregnancy was filling the whole uterus to make it the size of a big watermelon.
The couple had conceived by the IVF method, and came to know there were five babies inside the womb. They decided to reduce the number of foetuses to two, but at the time of reduction, the abnormal molar pregnancy was detected. The patient, after visiting several doctors, reached a private hospital in Ludhiana, but by that time, her haemoglobin was only four grams.
The treating doctor, Dr Venus Bansal (senior consultant, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology), stated that the risk of surgery was so great that even a minor mistake would have resulted in the woman’s death. The first hurdle in the case was to diagnoze it right, but with the help of expert doctors, they took up the challenge, and the patient is now recovering. Dr Bansal said a molar pregnancy could happen when something went wrong in the early stages of fertilization, and instead of a baby and
placenta, a molar develops. If it is not treated in time, it may convert to a persistent trophoblastic disease (pregnancy-related tumours), or rarely to cancer.
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