Cecil Jacobson - False Pregnancies

False Pregnancies

In the 1980s, Jacobson operated a reproductive genetics center in Fairfax County, Virginia. He specialized in treating women who had difficulty getting pregnant, or problems carrying a pregnancy to term. One form of treatment was to inject patients, before and after conception, with the hormone hCG (commonly used as a parenteral fertility medication). Patients who had been unable to conceive with other treatments reported success under Jacobson's care. The pregnancies progressed normally through the early stages: standard pregnancy tests were positive and patients' bodies began to undergo the normal changes. Jacobson performed ultrasound exams, identifying a fetus in the grainy image. Around the third month, Jacobson would report that the fetus had died.

In fact, these patients were never pregnant. The bodily changes were a reaction to the hCG, a hormone normally released during pregnancy. The pregnancy tests were false positives, inevitable because the tests determined pregnancy by the presence of hCG. (Later, during Jacobson's criminal trial, experts examined the ultrasound photographs, and reported that the purported "fetuses" were actually fecal matter.) Nevertheless, other patients were successful in becoming pregnant and having children. While some patients were uncomfortable with Jacobson's manner, and began to distrust him, other patients gave him credit for successful treatment.