Written By: N. Lothungbeni Humtsoe | Published : January 23, 2026 3:01 PM IST
Can Pregnancy Mask Colorectal Cancer? Laura Behnke, now 46, who was a former sports anchore had undergone several in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and was both excited and terrified for an embryo transfer at 41. After four IVF she had only one healthy embryo, but her husband Marc had a genetic condition which could be fatal if it was passed to their children.
Therefore, to make sure that there was nothing wrong, the couple decided to go through IVF. She told the media, "We needed to go through IVF so that we could have the embryos tested for his condition." Tragically, while considering herself a "very healthy person", Behnke noticed an odd symptom linked to colorectal cancerthe week before her embryo transfer after using the bathroom, which she brushed off until the baby was delivered.
The US mom said, "At that point, I was 100% focused on getting pregnant and making sure that nothing would get in the way of this potential baby." Finding out about the symptom, she said, "There was blood on the toilet paper and some blood in the bowel. I'd never had that before. Occasionally, you have a little bit of blood, but this was different. I was so focused on the fact that we had a transfer in a couple of days (that) I did not want to have to pause to try and figure out what was going on. I had blinders on."
Fortunately, the embryo transfer went successfully, she recalled, "Every part of my life had been straining, and certainly I was straining in the bathroom, so I must've aggravated something. I was so fortunate to become pregnant, I didn't think about the blood anymore." However, it was during her second trimester that rectal bleeding started again. She said, "At this point, I was reading everything about being pregnant, and it's right around the second trimester they warn you that hemorrhoids start to come up."
Later, in her third trimester, her condition worsens, unlike her rectal bleeding episode, which included painful, itchy and uncomfortable sensations. She said, "Still in my head, I wasn't connecting the dots that I had never felt that way before when I was bleeding." After giving birth to a healthy baby girl in December 2021, Behnke assumed that the "external hemorrhoid is going to fix itself," but the bleeding returned. In 2022, a biopsy and imaging confirmed Behnke had Stage 3b colorectal cancer. She explains, "It had broken through the rectal wall and was in some nearby lymph nodes, but thankfully, it was not metastatic and had not advanced to other organs."
Colorectal cancer is a silent killer, as it often presents with few symptoms until the cancer has spread to other parts of the organ. According to Behnke, she believes her pregnancy may have masked the other symptoms of colorectal cancer. She said, "I was tired, but I also had newborn at the time. And I was losing weight, but I was postpartum so my body was adjusting. And I had an urgency to go to the bathroom, but I had that since being pregnant. I still don't know what symptoms were caused by my pregnancy and what was caused by the cancer, which is scary."
