If you’re a pregnant woman or hoping to get pregnant, it’s important that you become aware of a few complications that might arise. Your doctor will usually keep an eye out for these complications with the help of lab tests and scans on a monthly or a weekly basis.
1. Gestational Diabetes
Gestational diabetes is faced by many pregnant women where they are diagnosed with diabetes for the first time during pregnancy. These high blood sugar levels are caused because of the body’s inability to produce enough insulin.
You are at a higher risk of developing gestational diabetes if you’re overweight, have PCOS, have a family history of diabetes or had gestational diabetes in your previous pregnancy.
This can be managed by having a proper diet and exercise all throughout the pregnancy so that the blood sugar levels are maintained.
But don’t worry, gestational diabetes is not permanent, in most cases, it goes away after the birth of the child.
2. High blood pressure
High blood pressure also known as hypertension is a serious concern among pregnant women. The threshold is usually set at 140/90 mm Hg. Several things like being obese, smoking, drinking alcohol or being over 40 years old increase your chances of getting high blood pressure during pregnancy.
There are also chances that you get low blood pressure and a few symptoms like headaches, dizziness and nausea are associated with it.
3. Premature labour
When you start experiencing regular contractions it means that your body is ready to give birth. When you get these contractions early on in the pregnancy, it’s called premature labour. Premature labour will lead to an early birth. A few things that can influence this are smoking, being overweight or underweight and other conditions like high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and infections.
Don’t ignore contractions especially if they’re very frequent.
4. Miscarriage / Pregnancy loss
Miscarriage is a term that is used when a loss of pregnancy occurs within the first 20 weeks of gestation. Almost 10 to 25% of pregnancies end in a miscarriage and most of them occur during the first 13 weeks of pregnancy. There are many reasons why a miscarriage could occur and a few common symptoms that can be noticed are weight loss, brown or red bleeding with or without cramps and contractions.
There are certain infections that pregnant women are susceptible to that can affect the birthing process or the baby. Some of these are bacterial vaginosis, group B strep, influenza, hepatitis B virus (HBV) and sexually transmitted infection (STI). This increased risk is due to the increase in immune tolerance in pregnancy to prevent a reaction against the fetus. Talk to a medical advisor about things you can do to prevent yourself from catching these infections.