(UFU - 2019 - 2 FASE)When Klara Dollan, then 22, w

(UFU - 2019 - 2ª FASE)

When Klara Dollan, then 22, woke up at 4 a.m. on the day she was due to start her new job, she thought her agonising stomach cramps signalled her period being “back with a vengeance”. She had been taking the pill with no break for more than six months, but had stopped about two weeks before. The waves of pain left her pale and shaking, but she didn’t feel she could call in sick on her first day – so she took some paracetamol on her mother’s advice, and caught the bus then the tube from the home they shared in Cricklewood in north-west London into the city.

Hours later, Dollan was in Hampstead’s Royal Free hospital, cradling a newborn baby girl: completely healthy and carried to term. Dollan had given birth by herself in the bathroom of her flat, after being sent home sick from work; a neighbour had heard her screams of labour and called an ambulance. When Dollan rang her mother and told her to come to the maternity ward, the reply was: “But you weren’t pregnant this morning!”

“This is not a particularly unusual phenomenon,” says Helen Cheyne, a professor of midwifery at the University of Stirling’s Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions Research Unit in Glasgow. “It’s rare – but it’s not that rare.” In midwifery and obstetrics and gynaecology circles, she says, if you haven’t come across a cryptic pregnancy yourself, it is not unusual to know someone – or know someone who knows someone – who has.

Although the research is sparse – as one might expect, given the fundamental element of surprise – Cheyne says cryptic pregnancies have been recorded around the world, dating back centuries. In fact, it was more understandable when pregnancy diagnoses were dependent on indicators such as the loss of periods and nausea. With highly accurate modern tests, says Cheyne: “It’s very easy to diagnose pregnancy – if you expect to be pregnant.”

Disponível em: <https://www.theguardian.com>. Acesso: 02 mar. 2019. Slightly edited.

RESPONDA A QUESTÃ O EM INGLÊS. RESPOSTAS EM PORTUGUÊS NÃO SERÃ O ACEITAS.

Based on the text, answer the following questions.

A) What is unusual about Klara Dollan’s medical history?

B) How old is this phenomenon described in the text?