Was it a chemical pregnancy?

Hello all,
A friend of mine has a problem and she needs your advice. She had unprotected sex during her fertility period and she believes she conceived. She went for hCG test one and a half weeks later and it confirmed pregnancy. However in the fifth week, she experienced some cramps which then led to periods and she says there were clots in the menses. She believes she conceived but miscarried. According to her, it might have been a chemical pregnancy. She is feeling very low. Kindly advice.

I concur with with you that it may be an early miscarriage. Chemical pregnancy is indeed an early miscarriage that takes place before an ultrasound can detect a scan. Normally, it occurs around the fifth week. It happens when the sperm fertilizes the egg but it fails to survive. When this happens, the body is forced to eject it. Women who go for hCG test at this point turn out to be positive. The reason is that there is a change in hormones that allow the test to turn positive. Those who get positive hCG results get shocked when they see their periods. However, if they are keen, there are obvious symptoms which will tell them that it was a miscarriage.
Normally, the bleed will resemble periods and may experience light cramping before the bleed. It may start by a few drops of what looks like a pale watery blood followed by dark brown bleeding. It happens to 50 to 60% of pregnancies and may go undetected. Chemical pregnancy is caused by many triggers but abnormality in the chromosome is believed to be the main cause. Luckily, chemical pregnancy may not repeat itself so having one should not make you panic. Notice that there is a difference between implantation bleeding and chemical pregnancy. Chemical pregnancy occurs when the fertilized egg embeds itself into the uterus lining. It happens around week three or a week before the start of your periods. A chemical bleeding may occur between the forth and the fifth week. This is the time you expect your normal bleeding so you may not notice it.