Preterm birth at 22 weeks

@hartje thank you

So sad to hear this happened to you. Wishing you lots of strength while you process this. As the doctors already said, sometimes they can't find the cause.
You mentioned your baby was healthy? Did they also do an autopsy and DNA testing? Sometimes there's a defect you can't see on the outside of your baby but that could still cause things to go wrong. Knowing the cause does help with processing, but it doesn't make the loss any less. I hope you and your family receive enough support from those around you.

Hi Chipa,

First of all, my condolences on the loss of your little girl.
Unfortunately, I also gave birth to our son in December last year at 22 weeks. I had abdominal pain 2 days before, which turned out to be contractions afterwards, but I didn't know that. When the midwife came, my cervix was already soft and I had to go to the hospital immediately, where I was told that I was already dilating. They tried to stop everything with medication to stop contractions, but it didn't work. Our son was born the next day and was able to live for a little while.
Unfortunately, just like with you, no cause was found, and we were told right away when everything happened that we shouldn't expect an answer. No infection was found, nothing, and because I was already so far along in the contractions, they couldn't determine if my cervix had shortened, which could have been the cause. We were told that we just had bad luck and that this can happen to you.
If I ever get pregnant again, I'll get progesterone injections starting at 16 weeks to keep everything in place, and if necessary, a stitch will be placed in my cervix.

I completely understand that you have a lot of questions, I do too, and it's made me very insecure because you keep going back over everything, wondering what it could have been? My pregnancy also went well and I had few complaints, and my son was also completely healthy; he even had a scan, but they couldn't find anything.
I hope this helps you in some way; unfortunately, I can't give you an answer about what the cause was, but I wanted to share my story anyway.
Love, and lots of strength! Xxx

Sometimes nature is really harsh and unfair. It's not your fault, and there was nothing you could have done differently.

Hey! I don't know if this is an old topic, but I read your story and I had the exact same thing two weeks ago at 20 weeks pregnant! What you tell about your whole story, even your birth and how it went, is exactly the same down to every detail as what happened to me. I had an appointment with my gynecologist recently and indeed have cervical insufficiency. In the future, this can be fixed well with a cerclage around 12-13 weeks. The bad thing is that unfortunately you almost always have to lose a baby first before they know you have this. It comes very spontaneously so before you have symptoms you are almost always too late and your amniotic sac is already hanging out too much. I also had a great pregnancy without any problems, nothing. Just worked that day and were installing wifi when I had a little stomach pain and within no time my nurse was there and ambulance and screeching tires to the hospital due to heavy bleeding. The gynecologist said there is a big chance this will happen again in the next pregnancy if nothing is done about it. Fortunately, they can do something about it, you don't want to go through this again! So ask your gynecologist for a preventive cerclage and if he doesn't want to do it or wants to measure your cervix every week, go to another hospital because some are not brave enough to do it. A measurement of your cervix can be fine that day and the next day the baby comes suddenly so it's not reliable. And you don't get any sign from your body that something is changing.
Radboud is specialized in this but my gynecologist at the RKZ also does them and thinks exactly like we do so that's nice.
I hope you still read this or that you or your gynecologist have already been informed about cervical insufficiency because some say yes bad luck and get pregnant again and it goes wrong again. They can do something about this.
Greetings Kim