Expert: Marcia Owen - 10/17/2011

Question
Hello,
last night my cat began to bleed from the vaginal area, it wasn't heavy bleeding and it had something else in it, it was a clear-ish fluid. She was discharging little spots of that every hour or so then she began to have contractions. I'm very sure the kittens aren't even fully developed yet. Her stomach is kind of hard but not very big at all. This morning when I checked on her, the contractions had stopped and there were no kittens to be found anywhere in the room. What I did find was a small pink sac which I think had an underdeveloped kitten in it (but I think she ate whatever was inside of it, I could be totally wrong though). How likely is it that she had a miscarriage? I only found 1 pink sac and the bleeding has stopped. I also couldn't see any blood stains that usually would be on the blanket a cat gives birth on. I'm very confused about this and when I called the vet they told me they had no idea what the "pink sac" could be and that it COULD be that my cat miscarried. I was told to wait a few days to see what happens but when I mentioned it was bad to have a cat just walking around a few days with dead kittens inside her they said that they weren't sure it was a miscarriage.

My cat is acting normal now except she is way more clingy than she's ever been with me.

Answer
Dear Edwin

It may be that your girl has had a miscarriage of one horn but unfortunately you don't say how pregnant she was.  The picture looks like a placenta that has failed and she may have miscarried a dead kitten and disposed of it, or the placenta has parted company with the kitten in the womb and the kitten is still in there but I would have though this the least likely.  It is not unknown for a cat to pass a kitten that has died and then go full term with any other kittens in the womb.  I think it might be best if you had the vet scan her to see if there are any more kittens in there so that you know what the position is.  You are right it would not be good for her to have kittens dead inside her as she could become very ill.

The fact that she is clingy could indicate she is going to deliver more or that she has had a singleton and is now feeling very sad.

Either way I think you need to get her scanned.

Regards

Marcia