Risk Factors during Pregnancy
During pregnancy, it is essential for a mother to practice proper diet as well as a healthy lifestyle. Correct medical treatment and prenatal care during pregnancy may as well help in preventing complications. Nevertheless, there are different factors which could be present before one becomes pregnant, which could result in a high-risk pregnancy. Certain women suffer from health issues in pregnancy. Such difficulties could implicate the health of the mother, the healthiness of the fetus, or both. Besides, females who are pregnant before becoming expectant could experience difficulties. These problems could make the prenatal period a high-risk condition. Various factors could make a pregnancy risky, including the age of the mother, existing health conditions, socioeconomic factors, lifestyle, and dietary complications during pregnancy along with health issues which occur before or during the prenatal period.
Risk Factors
Age-Related Factor
Pregnant teenagers have a higher possibility of developing anemia and pregnancy-associated high blood pressure – the absence of healthy red blood cells. Also, pregnant teens experience preterm (early) labor and delivery compared with older women. Further, teenagers have a higher possibility of not knowing they have contracted sexually transmitted infection (STI). Specific STIs could result in issues with the pregnancy or for the infant. Teenagers might be less probable to receive prenatal care or to fulfill prenatal engagements (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2015). It is essential for teenage pregnant women to have prenatal care as it enables a healthcare worker to assess, detect and treat dangers like advising teenager not to take particular drugs in pregnancy, at times prior to these risks turn out to be problems (Gill et al., 2012). For most of the older women, especially first-time expectant mothers aged over 35 years, they have healthy pregnancies, although studies have demonstrated that elder women have a greater risk for specific issues compared to younger women. These issues include:
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Gestational hypertension – pregnancy-related HPB and gestational diabetes (diabetes)
Loss of pregnancy
Ectopic pregnancy, a condition which could be deadly.
Surgical (Cesarean) birth (NICHD, 2007).
Problems related to delivery like excessive bleeding.
Prolonged labor which could last for over 20 hours.
Labor which does not progress.
Genetic conditions in the baby like Down syndrome.
Lifestyle Factors
Consumption of Alcohol
Alcohol consumption in pregnancy could raise the infant's risk for abrupt infant death syndrome, fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs), and different issues. FASDs are various impacts on the fetus caused by the use of alcohol by the mother in pregnancy. These impacts can be mild or severe, and they comprise developmental and cognitive disabilities, abnormal facial features, behavior issues, and heart, bones, kidneys and hearing disorders (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018). FASDs are entirely avoidable. When a female does not consume alcohol in prenatal period, the child will not have an FASD (Eckstrand et al., 2012). Further, women who take alcohol have a higher likelihood of having a stillbirth or miscarriage. Presently, research indicates that no safe quantity of alcohol for drinking while pregnant. In a study carried out by NIH, babies may experience long-standing developmental issues even with low prenatal exposure levels to alcohol.
Use of Tobacco
Smoking while pregnant makes the fetus to be at risk for specific congenital disabilities, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and preterm birth. According to a particular study, smoking increased the risk of stillbirth or the loss of a fetus after twenty weeks of prenatal period (NICHD, 2013). Besides, research has established that smoking during pregnancy results in changes in the immune system of the infant. Also, second-hand smoke puts women as well as her growing fetus at a higher risk for health issues.
Socioeconomic Factor
Poverty
During prenatal period, underprivileged mothers are probable to encounter various traumatic life occasions such as teenage pregnancies and single mothers, unemployment, populated physical surroundings, more crowded environments and much lesser resources for dealing with such experiences. The initial infant health impacts of poverty and gestation are numerous and frequently put a baby on a life-long path of differences in health consequences including greater risks for intrauterine growth restriction, premature birth, infant or neonatal death (Larson, 2007. Likewise, poverty is a strong determining factor of deferred intellectual growth and poor academic performance. Behavior issues among young children are powerfully connected to parental poverty. Studies have shown that mothers living in low-income locality tend to be linked to a higher risk for newborn and post-neonatal deaths. Besides, there is a higher risk for miscarriages amongst females who live in the lowest-income areas.
Dietary Complications during Pregnancy
Anorexia nervosa
It is an eating disorder whereby people have an intense fear of attaining weight and could become riskily thin. A woman could be underweight and might fail to increase adequate weight throughout pregnancy (Popovic et al., 2018). The woman could be at risk getting a child with unusually low-birth weight as well as associated health issues such as preterm birth, postpartum depression, and miscarriage.
Bulimia nervosa
It is a severe dangerous and psychological condition described by intake of abnormally vast quantities of food in a short period, followed by an effort to avoid attaining weight through purging what was ingested. The women who continue purging in pregnancy could experience chemical imbalances, dehydration, or cardiac anomalies, which are increased by pregnancy (Popovic et al., 2018). Pregnant women with bulimia are more likely to experience complications such as miscarriage, diabetes, preterm birth, and postpartum depression.
A Nutritional Meal Plan-A Chart
References
American Academy of Pediatrics. (2015). Teenage pregnancy. Retrieved from http://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/teen/dating-sex/pages/Teenage- Pregnancy.aspx
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2018). Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders: Alcohol use in pregnancy. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/alcohol-use.html
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Pregnant? Don't smoke. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/Features/PregnantDontSmoke/
Eckstrand, K. L., Ding, Z., Dodge, N. C., Cowan, R. L., Jacobson, J. L., Jacobson, S. W., et al. (2012). Persistent dose-dependent changes in brain structure in young adults with low-to- moderate alcohol exposure in utero. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 36(11), 1892–1902. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22594302
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). (2007). Older mothers more likely than younger mothers to deliver by caesarean. Retrieved from http://www.nichd.nih.gov/news/releases/pages/caesarean_release_030807.aspx
Gill, S. K., Broussard, C., Devine, O., Green, R. F., Rasmussen, S. A., Reefhuis, J., & National Birth Defects Prevention Study. (2012). Association between maternal age and birth defects of unknown etiology―United States, 1997–2007. Birth Defects Research Part A: Clinical and Molecular Teratology , 94 (12), 1010-1018.
Larson, C. P. (2007). Poverty during pregnancy: Its effects on child health outcomes. Paediatrics & child health , 12 (8), 673-677.
NICHD. (2013). Tobacco, drug use in pregnancy can double risk of stillbirth. Retrieved from https://www.nichd.nih.gov/news/releases/Pages/121113-stillbirth-drug-use.aspx
Popovic, M., Pizzi, C., Rusconi, F., Gagliardi, L., Galassi, C., Trevisan, M., ... & Richiardi, L. (2018). The role of maternal anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa before and during pregnancy in early childhood wheezing: Findings from the NINFEA birth cohort study. International Journal of Eating Disorders , 51 (8), 842-851.
