Navel piercing during pregnancy: A cautionary tale for the family physician, the obstetrician and the midwife

摘要

Navel piercing is usually performed above the umbilicus by women to enhance beauty and attractiveness. According to a British national survey, 9.5% of the women would have such piercing. It is therefore far from being rare for a midwife or a gynaecologist to have a young parturient woman with such piercing nowadays.Tissue tearing usually occurs as the jewellery get accidentally snagged or pulled and the tissue gets ripped. As pregnancy causes great abdominal distension, maintaining a navel piercing during that period may carry the risk of migration, rejection or striae/stretch mark development. A navel ring may also impede the growing uterus. Besides, we observed cases of rejections of abdominal microdermal implants during pregnancies.