Pregnancy

Answers for your specific questions.

Wondering about your health? Confused by what you’ve read? Browse our Ask the Nurse answer archive to find answers to many women's health questions and concerns. All answers are from a Cleveland Clinic women's health nurse.

Ask the Nurse Archive

What Does An Unusually Heavy Period Mean?

January 9, 2019 at 11:22am

I am 26 years old and my period has always been regular, lasting 3 to 4 days. I am married and sexually active, only using a pull out method. My cycle was late by 4 days last month and lasted 8 days. It was very heavy and painful, not my usual cycle.

I have taken a pregnancy test and it was negative, but now my worry is that implantation happened the same time as my period days. If it did, when will I be able to tell with a home pregnancy test? I want to say I miscarried last month, but I have no other symptoms so far. I am worried because I do drink alcohol regularly.

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What are the chances that I'm pregnant?

December 12, 2018 at 9:41am

I have a question concerning my chances of pregnancy. I was taking regular birth control, but stopped taking them when I was on antibiotics for a throat infection. After a day from my last antibiotic, I restarted my birth control, and I understand I need to wait seven days for it to kick it.

However, the fourth day I had intercourse with my partner and used condoms. We made sure nothing slipped and no condom broke to my knowledge. But he accidentally touched the outside of my private with possible seminal fluid. I had emergency contraception from a previous experience and decided to take it after 28 hours of the incident. The next day, I woke up with an increased amount of white discharge, breast tenderness, clumpy pale yellow cervical mucus (sticky and somewhat stretchy) and I became highly concerned if I ovulated.

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Do Antibiotics Affect A Woman's Period?

June 20, 2018 at 2:35pm

I am currently five days late for my period. A little less than a month ago (right after my last period), I was on antibiotics for my UTI, and I was wondering if that could make my period late?

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Traveling While Pregnant

January 7, 2015 at 8:30am

My friend is interested in vacationing on a cruise ship while pregnant. Is it safe to go on a cruise ship when a woman is in her first trimester? Is there anything she should be aware of before boarding a ship?

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Headaches during pregnancy

September 4, 2012 at 3:30pm

I am almost 32 weeks pregnant and have been getting constant headaches for the past 1-2 weeks. My blood pressure and urine have been normal.

Please advise what I can do? And what could be causing this?

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I have not had a period, can I still get pregnant?

August 16, 2012 at 2:00pm

I am 49 and I have not had a period for two years. I got the Mirena® back in 2009, but they could not find it on the ultrasound when I came back for a checkup. Either it came out or fibroid tissues have surrounded it. My question is can I get pregnant even though I have not had a period?

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Pregnancy in your 40s

July 13, 2012 at 11:16am

I just turned 40 on May. Five days before my birthday, I found out I was pregnant. Six weeks later, I miscarried. I am devastated; I really wanted to have a baby. We were not trying to get pregnant and were surprised to find out I was.

Now that I have been pregnant I want to try to see if I can get pregnant again. However, I am afraid of all the problems that I could face because of my age. The OB I saw did not seem too happy when I told her I wanted to try again and listed all the reasons I should not get pregnant, including chromosomal problems, preeclampsia, diabetes and pre-term birth. Are all these problems guaranteed to happen to me or the baby because of my age?

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Premature Ovarian Failure

December 1, 2011 at 5:03pm

I was recently diagnosed with Premature Ovarian Failure and extremely high, off the charts FSH. I am 32 years old and was in the process of planning to increase our family when I was diagnosed. My doctor put me on a Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), a combination pill of constant estrogen and progesterone to help with some symptoms I was experiencing. I know there is a very small chance of still getting pregnant while on HRT but my question is, is there one HRT better than another for improving my already slim chances of pregnancy?

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Plastic water bottles and pregnancy

September 19, 2011 at 11:49am

I’m pregnant and people keep telling me to stop drinking out of plastic water bottles. What’s the problem with them?

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Vasectomy

August 9, 2011 at 11:33am

My husband recently had a vasectomy. How do we know if the procedure worked?

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