You are planning to have a baby and are desperate to conceive. Your period is due and you are likely to get it in the next seven days. You have all the pre-menstrual signs or in lay man’s terms, you are “PMSing”.


You feel crabby and have slight abdominal cramping. You enter the bathroom and spot blood. Thinking it is an early period, you mark your next menstrual cycle around the same time for the next month.


However, in the following few days, you experience something unusual fatigue and nausea which is unlikely to occur when you are menstruating.

These symptoms indicate that the so-assumed “early period” was actually implantation bleeding caused by implantation during pregnancy. Implantation bleeding in early pregnancy is often pink or brown in color, but some assume that it is red. It does not look like normal menstrual period. This bleeding is generally scanty.

After the egg is released from your ovary, it travels towards the uterus down the fallopian tube. If the egg meets the right sperm, it gets fertilized. The fertilized egg then tries to attach itself to the lining of your uterus or to the endometrial lining. This is the same lining that breaks down every month in the form of your periods. If the implantation does not result in pregnancy, the egg gets flushed out with the normal menstrual cycle.

The implantation happens between six and twelve days of fertilization of the egg. The endometrial lining is rich with blood, and this is the reason why a few drops of blood may travel down through the mouth of your uterus or the cervix to the vagina during the implantation.

The first sign of pregnancy is implantation bleeding. During implantation bleeding pregnancy tests are rather useless as they may not provide accurate results. If you are trying to conceive, then watch out for implantation symptoms in pregnancy. These are the signs of early pregnancy. In case it is your normal period, then the bleeding will eventually get heavier.  

Implantation bleeding is quite common; you can get a pregnancy test done after nine days of ovulation. So, the next time you find some spotting on your panties, do not jump to any conclusion. Wait for a day or two to pass by and then determine whether it is your normal menstrual cycle that is just beginning or whether it is implantation bleeding.