Pregnancy is supposed to come with nausea, exhaustion and aches, so when something feels off, it is easy for everyone in the room to blame hormones. For a growing number of women, though, the symptoms that get waved away as “just pregnancy” are actually signs of cancer quietly spreading in the background. The result is a pattern of delayed diagnoses that can change the course of a life, and in some cases, cut it short.
Across clinics and online support groups, parents are now speaking up about how their concerns were brushed aside until a scan, a biopsy or an emergency admission finally revealed a tumor. Their stories are not about rare medical flukes as much as they are about blind spots in how pregnancy care is delivered, and about what it takes to be heard when a patient knows something is wrong.
When “Normal Pregnancy” Becomes A Convenient Explanation
Pregnancy gives doctors a ready-made script. Fatigue, bloating, constipation, shortness of breath and bleeding all fit neatly into the list of expected side effects, so it can feel almost logical to reassure a worried patient that everything is fine. Clinicians themselves acknowledge that this overlap makes it harder to spot red flags, which is why some services now explicitly ask whether a symptom could be cancer or pregnancy before closing the file. The problem is that in busy antenatal clinics, the default still leans heavily toward assuming pregnancy first and investigating later, if at all.
That tendency is not just on the medical side. Many patients also talk themselves out of seeking help, telling themselves that new pains are trivial or that they should not “waste” an appointment. Research on help seeking has found that when People downplay symptoms or worry about being a nuisance, they are more likely to delay seeing a doctor at all. Put those two forces together, a system primed to normalise discomfort and patients primed to minimise it, and it becomes very easy for cancer to hide in plain sight during pregnancy.
Ovarian Cancer Disguised As A Baby Bump
Few stories capture this confusion more starkly than that of women whose growing bellies were not just about a baby. In one widely shared case, Doctors initially told a woman that a large cyst was part of a normal pregnancy, only for it to be revealed as cancer that needed urgent treatment. She had been reassured that her swelling abdomen and discomfort were simply part of carrying a child, and only persistent pain finally triggered the scans that showed a tumor instead of a harmless sac.
That misreading is not surprising when the early stages of ovarian disease are considered. According to guidance for expectant parents, Early ovarian cancer often has no obvious symptoms, and when they do appear, they look a lot like pregnancy itself, including bloating, pelvic pressure and changes in bowel habits. One patient who later wrote about her experience described how her first ultrasound showed a mass on her right ovary with a note recommending an oncologist, yet she still had to push for answers after her Questions were initially brushed aside. For her, catching an early stage ovarian tumor meant surgery and monitoring instead of a far more aggressive fight later on.
Colon And Rectal Cancers Written Off As Hemorrhoids
Lower down the digestive tract, the pattern repeats. Rectal bleeding, constipation and cramping are so often chalked up to hemorrhoids or iron supplements that colorectal cancer can quietly advance for months. One Mom, 36, With was repeatedly told her agony was just postpartum issues and was advised to walk more, eat a high fiber diet and take stool softeners and laxatives. Doctors kept reassuring her, and Still the pain escalated until scans finally revealed rectal cancer that had been growing while she was caring for a newborn.
Other parents describe similar experiences with colon tumors. One first time mother, 29, had For First Time Mom, Cramping and Constipation Dismissed By Doctors as Pregnancy Symptoms, It Was Colon Cancer, and she later urged others to push for colonoscopies when something feels off. Another woman recalled being told that her bowel changes were hemorrhoids, even though she had no itching or burning, only bleeding and thin stools, before learning that colon cancer is in younger adults and during pregnancy. In another case, Doctors initially dismissed symptoms before diagnosing colon cancer eight months into her pregnancy, a delay that could easily have cost her the chance at curative treatment.
When Morning Sickness Is Not Just Morning Sickness
Nausea is so baked into the cultural script of pregnancy that it barely raises an eyebrow. That is what made it so easy for people around Sophia to assume she was just dealing with a rough first trimester when she kept vomiting and losing weight. According to a detailed account, NEED KNOW a pregnant woman, 29, who thought she had morning sickness was eventually diagnosed with a fast growing cancer, and Sophia was told repeatedly that her symptoms were “normal” and would subside with time. By the time further tests were ordered, the disease had already advanced, turning what might have been an earlier intervention into a race against the clock.
There is also a smaller, stranger group of patients whose pregnancy tests are positive even when there is no viable pregnancy at all. Some of them are living with gestational trophoblastic disease, a condition in which abnormal tissue in the uterus produces huge amounts of the hormone HCG. One woman described being blindsided by a cancer she had never heard of after her hormone levels skyrocketed to astronomical figures, even though there was no baby on the scan. Another, Kaylan Wilhelm, had several positive tests but ultrasounds that did not show a fetus, and After more investigation she was told she had a rare cancer that mimics pregnancy. In online forums, others share how, At the 8 week scan, they learned they had a molar pregnancy, a rare condition that occurs in about 1,000 pregnancies, and were warned that the abnormal tissue could turn into cancer if not removed.
Breathlessness, Chest Pain And A Lung Tumor
Shortness of breath in late pregnancy is usually blamed on a uterus that is crowding the lungs, and chest pain can be written off as heartburn or muscle strain. That is why a Mom, 35, mistakes did not immediately ring alarm bells for her care team. Jessica Sherrie, 35, had never smoked and initially dismissed her rib pain as a pulled muscle from carrying a toddler, only to later learn that it was a sign of lung cancer. She described being Pretty freaked out when she finally heard the diagnosis, because she had been told for months that her pain was just a pregnancy symptom.
Her story undercuts the stereotype that lung cancer is only a smoker’s disease or that it always comes with a dramatic cough. In her case, the warning sign was a deep ache that flared when she breathed, something that could easily be mistaken for the strain of late pregnancy. The fact that this happened to a Mom like Jessica Sherrie, who fit none of the usual risk profiles, is a reminder that pregnancy should not automatically be used to explain away new chest symptoms, especially when they are getting worse instead of better.
How Bias And Busy Clinics Feed Dismissal
Behind these individual stories sits a bigger structural problem. Pregnant women are often young, and young people are still widely seen as “too healthy” for cancer, which can make clinicians less likely to order scans or blood tests. In one powerful account, Cancer found in pregnancy robbed one mother of seeing her baby grow, and oncologist Prof Richard Simcock, chief medical officer for a major charity, warned that the dismissal of symptoms in pregnant women should not be happening. He argued that any persistent or severe symptom in pregnancy should be getting investigated straight away, not waved off as hormones.
Legal specialists have also started to see patterns in complaints. One firm that handles medical negligence cases notes that if someone is pregnant, there is a real risk that a cancer diagnosis will be delayed because symptoms are often confused as being pregnancy related, and suggests that those affected contact the charity Mummy and Star for support. In clinical education, projects like the Cancer Conversation with Mummy’s Star are trying to retrain reflexes so that doctors think “could this be cancer” as well as “this is probably pregnancy” when they hear about new pain, bleeding or weight loss.
The Emotional Toll Of Being Ignored
For the parents living through this, the medical details are only part of the story. There is also the emotional whiplash of being told for months that everything is fine, only to be hit with a cancer diagnosis when the baby is already on the way or has just arrived. In one widely shared piece, a mother described how Alex Moss and Caroline Bilton reported her saying that cancer found in pregnancy had robbed her of seeing her baby grow, and she agonised over how to tell her older child that she had the disease. That sense of stolen time is a recurring theme, especially when parents feel that earlier warnings were missed.
There is also anger, and a kind of quiet determination, in the way many of these women now talk about their experiences. A Georgia mother, Jenna Scott, has spoken about how her initial pregnancy symptoms were dismissed until she was diagnosed with colon cancer eight months into her pregnancy, and how she now tells others to Trust Your Own Body when something feels wrong. Another woman whose cramping and bloody stools were brushed off as a common issue during pregnancy later shared her story through Cramping and Constipation to encourage other mothers to insist on tests. Their message is not anti doctor, it is pro persistence.
Support Networks Stepping Into The Gap
As more of these stories surface, specialist charities have stepped in to offer the kind of tailored support that general cancer services often cannot. One of the best known is Mummy’s Star, a charity dedicated to women and birthing people diagnosed with cancer during pregnancy or within a year of giving birth. Its team offers financial help, peer support and practical advice on everything from treatment decisions to childcare, and it has become a go to referral for clinicians who realise that their patient is facing both a high risk pregnancy and a life threatening illness at the same time.
The charity also produces educational resources that spell out how Bodies change during pregnancy and post natally, and how that can mask early cancer symptoms. By highlighting patterns, such as persistent pain that does not respond to usual pregnancy remedies or bleeding that does not fit typical trimester timelines, they give both patients and professionals a clearer sense of when to worry. Other organisations, like the Colorectal Cancer Alliance, share stories such as that of Haley, who experienced persistent symptoms as a young girl and was rushed to the ICU when a brain tumor was finally found, to show how easily serious disease can be missed when symptoms are normalised.
What Patients Can Do When Something Feels Off
None of this should be read as a call for panic every time a pregnant person feels unwell. Most symptoms in pregnancy really are benign. But the experiences of Sophia, Jessica Sherrie, Jenna Scott and others point to some practical steps that can tilt the odds toward earlier diagnosis when cancer is in the mix. One is to track symptoms over time and be specific, for example noting that rectal bleeding has lasted for weeks, that pain is waking someone from sleep, or that nausea is causing weight loss rather than easing after the first trimester. When those details are presented clearly, it is harder for a clinician to wave them away as generic pregnancy complaints.
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