Can someone please tell me about molar pregnancies?

[RupertTheBear]

My friend found out she had had a missed miscarriage at her 12 week scan a couple of weeks ago. She talked to me about it loads as the same thing happened to me about two years ago so I understood. However, today she has told me that the doctors think it may have been a molar pregnancy and she is awaiting test results. I know nothing about this at all - can anyone explain what it is for me please?

i think it is when the sac developes but the foetus does not.

But there was a baby - she has shown me the pictures from her scan. The baby measured 9 weeks when she should have been 12 weeks. Off to google now...

I had a molar pregnancy in 2003, you can have a complete mp or a partial one, in a partial mp there is a foetus, in a complete mp the foetus is unable to develop.

It is a complicated disease to describe, but basically the placenta develops at an abnormal rate (if there is a foetus present it overtakes the fetal development, or it doesn't allow a foetus to develop at all).

In the same way that a skin mole (hence molar) can develop abnormally, they can grow at such a rate that they have to be treated with chemotherapy, as they are at risk of becoming cancerous.The majority of mp are treated with a d&c, and then followed up by blood/urine tests, to make sure they are completely removed

The best websites are www.molarpregnancy.co.uk and www.hmole-chorio.org.uk. I hope your friend is ok, and if she needs to talk to someone about it, to come on here, or go to one of those websites, which have forums as well.

Hi Rupert,
I had a partial mole diagnosed in April - the lovely hj has given all the information above. It can seem very daunting - you're just about coming to terms with the idea of a miscarriage, and then you're told there's a risk of it becoming cancerous. However, it's totally treatable (as hj will attest!), and for the majority of women it will never get that far. What is also hard is that you can't try to get pregnant again while in follow-up, which can be anything from 6 months to 2 years after your first clear result - usually 6 months. This can be very dispiriting, and it helps to talk about it here! I started a thread here and people were tremendously helpful on it - do point your friend in that direction.

Thank you so much for that. It's a bit clearer for me now. It's all very hard for her as she had been trying to get pregnant for two years and was so excited about it only to be hit with the bombshell that there was no heartbeat at her scan. And now this.
I will certainly point her in this direction.

Rupert, a partial mole often occurs when two sperm somehow manage to fertilise the egg, leading to 3 sets of chromosomes. It's hard to get to grips with the idea that there was never a "proper" baby there. She'll probably have lots of ups and downs - grief over the loss, relief when she gets her first zero hcg level, and then slumps when she can't ttc again during follow-up. It must be heartbreaking after having tried for 2 years - there are lots of positive stories here and on the molar forum - it's helped me enormously.

I too had a twin partial molar pregnancy - way back in 1997. I had to have 2 years follow up, bloods and urine and was not supposed to get pregnant again during that time.

I also underwent some additional chemo too

But...... I have 2 lovley boys (3.5 and 2.2)