Bryony was slim and healthy when these photos were taken. Weeks later she felt ill and lay down. What happened next was the most shocking thing imaginable

Bryony Mills-Evans assumed that the cramping abdominal pain she had at night and all day at work as a beautician was nothing more than menstrual pain.

But when she closed the store for the evening, events took a dramatic turn.

Not only did the pain in her abdomen increase, but Bryony also became aware of a tightness around her waist.

‘It felt like my leggings were too small,’ says Bryony, 28, from Caersws, Powys.

She pulled down the waist of the leggings and then lay down on a treatment bed, hoping the pain would go away.

“I lay there for about 20 minutes and the cramps kept getting worse,” she says.

‘Then suddenly I felt something emerge from between my legs and to my shock and horror I realized it was a head!’

Bryony didn’t have period pain, she was in labor – despite having no idea she was pregnant.

She recalls, “I sat there, looked at my little girl and thought, How had this happened?

‘I had no symptoms, no morning sickness, no tummy, no cravings – but most importantly I had my period every month.

‘I didn’t plan on being a mother at this age; I was 23. And the father and I were no longer together. I was completely shocked. I couldn’t believe I had carried a baby without realizing it.

‘I was lying in bed, at work, with a baby on my stomach and my phone was empty and being charged at the front of the salon.

‘I froze for a while, with the umbilical cord still attached. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t feel an immediate connection like most mothers do because I had no idea I was even expecting that.”

After about twenty minutes, Bryony felt able to slide off the bed, wrap her daughter in towels and go to the front of the salon to retrieve her phone and call an ambulance.

It may seem extraordinary that someone could be pregnant and not know it – but it can and does happen.

Known as a cryptic or stealth pregnancy (meaning a woman has no idea what she is expecting until she is at least five months pregnant), the woman may not experience any weight gain or illness or even see a bump. It may bleed – for example when the embryo implants, which is mistaken for menstrual bleeding.

And it’s not as rare as you might think: A 2023 study in the journal Case Reports in Women’s Health, based on data from women in Berlin, Germany, found “pregnancy denial” — a term interchangeable with cryptic pregnancy — after 20 weeks in one in 475 pregnancies and in one in 2,500 at full term pregnancy.

If the same trend occurs in Britain, it means there could be up to 325 unexpected births every year.

The study’s author, Dr Kirsten Duckitt, clinical associate professor in the department of general gynecology and obstetrics at Vancouver Island Hospitals, told the Mail’s Good Health: ‘I was surprised by the numbers – it was more common than I had thought .’

Cryptic pregnancy should not be confused with concealed pregnancy, which historically was “the term for a woman who had a good idea of ​​what was going on but didn’t want to reveal it for whatever reason,” says Dr. Duckitt.

In rare cases, a cryptic pregnancy may be linked to women’s inability to come to terms with the fact they are pregnant, says Professor Susan Bewley, obstetrician and emeritus professor of obstetrics and women’s health at King’s College London.

‘There are some powerful psychological forces in our heads. We can hold two opposing views at the same time, so we are aware that there is something going on that we don’t want to see and therefore we don’t feel it.’

In other words, on a subconscious level, these women know they are pregnant, but can’t bring themselves to face the fact.

But most often it occurs when the woman has never thought about it – for example, there is no weight gain or morning sickness. Women may confuse small spots, which may occur due to bleeding at the edge of the placenta, with menstruation.

‘And those who have irregular periods may think that strange bleeding is completely normal for them,’ adds Dr Duckitt.

Additionally, some “pregnancies carry differently and some are more obvious than others,” she says.

She remembers a woman who arrived at the hospital “writhing around in pain” and had no idea she was pregnant.

‘It wasn’t until I did a vaginal exam and found a head that we all realized she was about to give birth. We had to drive her to the maternity ward very quickly!’

Professor Bewley says that while it is ‘unusual not to notice you are pregnant, it is possible – and most gynecologists and obstetricians will have had to deal with a cryptic pregnancy more than once in their long careers’.

She herself has seen it happen to women who thought they were in menopause, only to discover late in their pregnancy that they were about to give birth.

But cryptic pregnancies are more common in young women and in women with irregular periods.

Another factor that makes this more likely is if the placenta is at the front of the uterus, as this can ‘muffle’ the sensation of the baby’s kicks.

‘It’s like the baby kicking through a thick piece of flesh, which could mean the mother isn’t getting the shock waves in the body to feel the kicks,’ says Professor Bewley.

‘We know for sure that women who have the placenta before the baby and who know they are pregnant feel less fetal movement.

‘There is also something called borborygmi, that funny sound you make when your intestines move. Some women get that a lot and don’t necessarily feel the baby moving if they already have that kind of movement.’

Bryony insists she wasn’t in denial about her pregnancy: “I just had no idea,” she says.

‘I had broken up with my long-term boyfriend Rob a few months earlier and hadn’t seen anyone else since. I had no reason to believe I was pregnant.’

It took two hours for the ambulance to arrive, during which time she delivered the placenta and cut the umbilical cord when she noticed it turning white as the blood flowed out.

“Instinct told me I had to get rid of it, so I grabbed a little pair of eyebrow scissors and cut it off,” says Bryony, recalling the November 2019 event.

She then texted her mother asking her to meet her at the hospital, explaining that she had just had a baby – rushing to the hospital for an emotional meeting.

“She was shocked and so emotional, but so full of love,” says Bryony.

There, doctors checked her and confirmed that both she and her daughter Willow, who weighed more than 5 pounds, were doing well. She was fired the next day.

However, Bryony admits that the lack of preparation meant that she found life with a newborn difficult.

“I had no idea about feeding, never changed a diaper and was at home with a newborn,” she says.

‘No doctor asked me for a follow-up examination or explained why this had happened. I just got sent home with this baby.

‘Midwives visited me a few days after the birth, and then the doctor’s office once or twice after that – but there was no extra help.’

A few days later she broke the news to Rob, who was thrilled. The pair rekindled their relationship, with Bryony and baby Willow living with her mother and Rob with his parents – until they bought a house three years later.

“Rob and I learned quickly and fell in love with her.” Bryony says.

Bryony’s baby was a shock not only to her, but to her friends as well. Some of them even sent her messages asking if she had made it up. When she and her friends met again, they were all emotional – “some were even crying.”

Bryony and Rob now have a second child, a boy, Parker, 18 months; Willow is now five.

This pregnancy was normal and she felt it moving and had no periods.

“Weirdly, I looked very pregnant with Parker!” she says.

‘Looking back now, I can see that I was very tired during my first pregnancy, but I just put that down to working a lot and having a busy social life.

‘Willow was a complete surprise, but now I can’t imagine life without her.’