Cryptic pregnancy scam
It was a cold and rainy morning sometime in April, when one of the OPD nurses on duty knocked on the consulting room.
Nurse KC: Doc, are you free? There’s a new patient that will like to see you.
Me: Okay, Please send her in.
Patient comes in….
Me: Good morning Ma’am, how may I help you?
Patient: Good morning Doc, I am about 3 months pregnant but still seeing my menses monthly and I am worried.
Me: It is not normal to be pregnant and still be bleeding or seeing your menses.
Me: How was this pregnancy confirmed? PT? Ultrasound Scan? Any pregnancy symptoms?
Patient: They said I should not go to any hospital for antenatal or pregnancy tests because the baby won’t show in scan and pregnancy test would be negative.
Me: Who are these “They” that told you these? It is strange that a woman will be pregnant for 3 months yet PT test can’t detect hCG level or ultrasound scan show the fetus.
Patient: Ha! Doc, you’ve not heard about cryptic pregnancy that most women are going for in this town?
Me: (Dumbfounded) Cryptic Pregnancy? You mean the MTV’s series “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant”? I don’t understand ma’am
Patient: No, Doc there’s a woman that gets women pregnant via cryptic pregnancy and they even have a WhatsApp group where some ladies share their testimonies
At that moment I had to adjust the temperature of the air conditioning system because the interaction was becoming interesting when I heard “WhatsApp group” and “There’s a woman that gets women pregnant via cryptic pregnancy”
Me: Ma’am, from your biodata I can see you’re a Barrister, when you heard the word cryptic, weren’t you skeptical about the whole process? Cryptic is something obscure/not clear or mysterious. Why allow someone help make you pregnant and it’s is now cryptic/hidden or suspicious?
Patient: (Heads down and feeling bad probably) Me: Okay, let’s google what cryptic pregnancy is all about together.
Cryptic pregnancy or stealth or delayed pregnancy is a lack of subjective awareness of pregnancy until the end of gestation in pregnant women. They aren’t common, but they’re not unheard of, either. It has an incidence of 1:475. Causes are not clear.
There is no medical literature to support the fact that someone can make you pregnant in a cryptic way.
Me: Ma’am, so you see that cryptic pregnancy is an abnormal finding and not a normal one. Please tell me more about it.
Patient: I was introduced by a friend, they have 3 categories N500,000, N1,000,000 and N1,800,000 depending on sex selection and success rate. On my 1st visit to the clinic after confirmation of payment, something was inserted into my vagina….and I was asked to have regular vaginal sexual intercourse with my husband and return in 4 weeks time and was told am pregnant in a cryptic way and that I should not bother going to any hospital for antenatal or for pregnancy tests because the baby won’t show in scan.
Me: Did you ask them what was inserted into your vagina?
Patient: No
Me: Why not? Beside being a Lawyer don’t you know it is your right to know what drug is being given to you, why it’s being given and possible side effects/reactions?
Patient: (Awkward silence)