Common Causes of a High-Risk Pregnancy

Before getting pregnant, you should be aware of the various risk factors that can result in a high-risk pregnancy. However, practicing good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle during prenatal care is also key to helping prevent complications and promote your health and that of the unborn baby. Some factors more likely to cause a high-risk pregnancy include being underweight or overweight, your age, problems with your previous pregnancies, and pre-existing medical conditions. You can explore various pregnancy Garden City services to help determine which conditions can develop during pregnancy and make your pregnancy high risk for early diagnosis. Such conditions include:

Gestational diabetes

It is a type of diabetes that usually develops once you are pregnant and did not exist before you conceived. In most cases, it usually occurs when a pregnant mother fails to produce enough insulin. It can also result from the mother being obese or overweight, which makes them develop insulin resistance once they conceive. However, you should note that your pregnancy can be healthy, resulting in the delivery of a healthy baby if you follow the treatments recommended by your care provider.

Pre-eclampsia

Pre-eclampsia is characterized by extremely elevated blood pressure and changes in blood levels of liver enzymes and protein in urine during pregnancy. Such concerns can affect your liver, kidney, and brain. However, when you adhere to the treatment given to you by your physician, you can give birth to healthy babies. However, if left untreated, the condition can be serious, resulting in complications for the mother and the baby. You can also suffer from eclampsia, a serious form of pre-eclampsia that often causes seizures and even makes the mother go into a coma.

Preterm labor

Generally, preterm labor is described as labor that starts before thirty-seven weeks of pregnancy. It is considered abnormal because, during that time, the baby is usually not well developed and may not be able to survive outside the mother’s womb. Therefore, your care provider may take various steps and offer various treatments to help stop the labor, especially if you have started experiencing it before thirty-seven weeks of pregnancy.

HIV/AIDS

You should be aware that HIV/AIDS usually damages or kills the immune system cells responsible for fighting diseases. Therefore, by doing so, your immune system is weakened, thus reducing your body’s ability to fight certain cancers and infections. Similarly, mothers can also transmit HIV to their babies during pregnancy or birth or after birth, commonly through breastfeeding. However, there are effective ways or strategies you can apply to help prevent the spread or transmission of HIV from the mother to the child.

Other medical conditions

Other medical conditions that are more likely to make your pregnancy high risk are type 1 diabetes, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, kidney problems, heart problems, or breathing problems. In such cases, you are recommended to ensure you attend your regular prenatal checkups to help you and your baby remain healthy.

You should note that your pregnancy not being high-risk does not mean you do not have to attend all your prenatal visits because they help ensure you and your baby remain healthy till after delivery. Therefore, ensure you adhere to your prenatal appointments irrespective of whether your pregnancy is high-risk. You can therefore schedule your pregnancy consultations at Women’s Healthcare Of Garden City today and receive quality services that promote your health and that of your unborn baby.