Strangled gravidic uterus, an exceptional complication of umbilical hernia during pregnancy, a case report

Strangulated pregnancy is a very rare presentation in which the intra umbilical strangulated form is exceptional. To our knowledge, we report the first Moroccan case and one of less than 10 cases published in the literature of a strangulated gravid uterus; in a woman admitted for treatment of umbilical pain.

Through this presentation, we report a sporadic case of hernial strangulation during pregnancy containing an evolving pregnancy in the umbilical harness bag. The suspicion of this diagnosis was clinical and the confirmation made by ultrasound and abdominal MRI for confirmation. The objectives of this publication are threefold: i), to report this new exceptional case ii), to highlight the place of imaging in the management of hernial pathology iii), and to recommend surgical treatment of umbilical hernias in women of childbearing age in order to avoid surgical complications and maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality.

Our case report shows that we should consider this very rare presentation of strangulated pregnancy. Our work also reports another new case to the poor published literature on this subject and emphasizes the importance of surgical management of parietal pathology by focusing on the parietal impact of physiological change during pregnancy.